


Finding the Loophole

by Vae



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), American Idol RPF
Genre: Canon Queer Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-21
Updated: 2010-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-10 17:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vae/pseuds/Vae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Acclaimed songwriter Kris Allen is finally laying down his own recording of his songs. He's retired to the studio for a month, and he's taken a vow: until the recording's done, there'll be no drinking, no partying, and definitely no girls. Everything's going to be dedicated to the music. Until rock star Adam Lambert, recently returned from touring, turns up at the studio to remind Kris that he signed a contract to write a song to become Adam's next single release - and Adam prefers to collaborate on every song that's created for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding the Loophole

>   
> _EXCLUSIVE!!! KRIS ALLEN TO RECORD  
> Finally confirmed, it seems that acclaimed songwriter Kris Allen is following through on those hints and getting into the studio to record his own music. Allen, who has written hits for Train and Jack Johnson (among others), will be retiring to Navarre Studios in what is rumored to be strict seclusion for the next month to record his debut album. A source close to Kris tells us that he and the friends who form his band have made a mutual pact to dedicate all their time to recording. No partying, no drinking, and definitely no girls..._   
> 

"Oh, fuck this shit." Tommy threw the magazine across the bed with typical accuracy, if not elegance, pages falling open again as it landed against Adam's thigh. "Isn't he meant to be writing a song for you?"

"A song for _us_," Adam corrected. He picked up the magazine and scanned the article, brows drawing together in a frown. "Shit. Allen? The little cute one?"

Sure, he knew the guy had written some amazing music - there was no way Adam would have commissioned a song from him if he hadn't - but the other thing he remembered about Kris Allen was the article he'd seen online about Allen accepting his first Grammy. Adam had been there for the ceremony, but he'd had his own award to collect, performance to give, media to work. He hadn't picked up on who the cute guy with the southern drawl actually was until long after he'd heard the snippet of relaxed acceptance speech. He'd been browsing through gossip sites to catch up on who was doing who in the industry and stopped at the sight of a familiar pair of brown eyes smiling back at him from the screen. And just maybe he'd been on the lookout for other photos since then, along with keeping track of the songs the man had written.

"The one who's exactly your type, yeah." Tommy tugged the magazine back again. "And, you know, the one who's meant to be writing your next single."

"Our next single," Adam said, for what felt like the hundredth time. "I've told you, we're a band, it's not just about me."

Tommy snorted. "Yeah, because thousands of people would turn up if you weren't singing. Suck it up."

Adam was pretty sure thousands of people would turn up just to see Tommy by now, if not the rest of the band, but he let it pass. "No girls..." he said thoughtfully.

"No partying," Tommy said pointedly, kicking Adam's calf. "You couldn't pull that no girls shit anyway, Cam would rip you to shreds."

"And she scares me," Adam agreed seriously and got kicked again for his honesty. "Cut that _out_, ow. Okay. We're...fuck, where are we now?"

"Late." Monte's head appeared around the door. "Move your diva ass, we've got three hundred miles to cover today."

The joys of touring. Adam sighed, absently rubbing his leg, and moved, thankful he hadn't even unpacked much overnight. "Tommy..."

"Is getting your soy triple shot latte," Tommy completed, nodding, and slithered off the bed. "Bus in ten or we're leaving the shit you haven't packed and setting Traci on you."

Some days, Adam wondered if Madonna had to deal with a band who thought they were babysitters. Then he remembered his last two PAs quitting over his timekeeping (or lack of it) and sucked it up. "If we leave behind that p-spot vibe again, you're replacing it this time."

"Don't wanna know," Monte said serenely and withdrew, followed swiftly by Tommy.

Adam looked at the magazine article again, wondering, and ran his finger over the songwriter's smiling face. "No girls, huh?"

~~~

There never was any geographical logic to a tour and Adam had given up on looking for it after the first six gigs. Which is how they could be in Sacramento one night, Boston the next, Philadelphia the next and San Francisco the night after that. This tour, though, thank fuck, was finishing back in LA, back at home. It meant after the final encore of the final show, he got out of the stage door, sweat glistening through make-up and still slightly breathless and high from the buzz of it, signed and smiled and posed for the fans, then slid into a car and got to go home to his own bed.

After six months of sleeping on buses and in random hotels, his own bed was a luxury. His own empty bed; there was no way he'd ask anyone he cared about to put up with all the shit that came with touring half the year and working like mad on promotion the rest of the time. Besides, he kind of liked it that way: his bed, his space to unwind and just _be_. No expectations and no demands. Only peace, the blessed darkness of blackout blinds, and complete privacy.

It meant he could wake up the next morning and not worry about anyone apart from himself. Stretch, scratch, walk naked to the bathroom without putting on a show for an audience, and take as long as he liked in the shower before heading down to the kitchen to find out what the maid service had left in his fridge and cupboards that he could make breakfast out of. Coffee was _always_ the first priority, machine left to do its thing while he checked his phone messages.

One from Tommy, one from his mom, one from his brother, three from Brad (one with a picture that Adam was pretty sure would be obscene if he could even work out what he was looking at) and three from Traci, PA du jour. There were two days before he was due in the studio and he was pretty sure he could work those to his advantage. One of them, anyway. Today was going to be recovery and repair.

Adam fired off a quick text to Brad, finished making coffee, and considered his plans. So, Kris Allen was about to throw his cute little hat into the ring as a recording artist. He would hardly turn out to be competition - Adam was really fucking sure that Allen's style would be nothing like his own glam fantasy extravaganza - but he was going to be interesting. And, Adam told himself as he raided the fridge for juice and fresh fruit to make breakfast, Kris Allen was going to fucking well be writing the song he was contracted to write for Adam, and write it by the original deadline.

Two hours later he was reclining blissfully on a heated bed, eyes closed, while Ash did mysterious and wonderful things to his face to repair the damage of too long without proper nutrition or sleep. Meanwhile, Brad gave a running commentary of every guy he'd fucked since Adam had last been in town, regardless of the fact that he'd sent texts to Adam about most of them. There was something kind of comforting about listening to the pitiless assessments Brad made, the ruthless way he dissected and analyzed every fuck.

"So I _guess_ he had potential? But oh, honey, he's gonna have to learn what to do with - are you even listening to me?"

Adam didn't open his eyes. He wasn't sure if Brad could even see him, but he was pretty sure that Ash would smack him if he moved his lips too much while he still had the facemask on, and though in some circumstances that could be fun, this wasn't one of them. "I issnin," he managed, with as little movement as possible.

"You're totes giving me feedback on this later," Brad said, sounding mollified. "There'll be a pop quiz, I'm not even kidding. Anyway, where was I? Right, so, I managed to lose _his_ number in about, oh, thirteen seconds, and then there was..."

Adam smiled slightly, unable to stop the twitch of his lips. The flow of words washed over him mostly unheeded as he let it all go and just relaxed. There probably would be a pop quiz, but he could coast his way through most of that later, and he'd already made his peace with the fact that Brad had probably dissected him and their sex life in exactly the same way when they'd been together, and probably after.

Once he was free of the facemask, steamed, exfoliated, scrubbed, wrapped, cleansed, toned and moisturized, generally feeling like a very happy limp rag and wrapped in a robe opposite Brad at their lunch table, he broached the subject he really wanted to know about. "So you still know everyone in this town, right?"

Brad preened slightly, eyes half-closing in pleasure at the compliment. "Anyone who's anyone, honey, and if I don't know them, they're not anyone worth knowing."

Or knowing about, anyway, and that was more important, because the thought of Brad actually _knowing_ Kris Allen, in the way that Brad knew most guys, was not really one Adam wanted to dwell on. He wasn't going to look into the reasons for that too closely, either. "So what d'you know about Kris Allen?"

"Kris Allen?" Brad's eyes widened again, and he gave a happy little sigh. "Dreamy divorcé with the drawl to die for Kris Allen?"

Adam choked slightly, and covered it with a sip of water. "Didn't think he was your type, babe."

"Oh, he's not," Brad said airily. "Still, a boy can appreciate a hot accent and a hot ass, right?"

"Hey!" Adam objected.

"Not as hot as yours," Brad said dutifully. He leaned across the table, and patted Adam's hand consolingly. "Not the ass, anyway. What d'you wanna know?"

That was a good question, and one worthy of consideration. Because just saying 'anything' to Brad was way too much of a giveaway of Adam's interest, and likely to get him blurting out 'I knew that' if Brad mentioned anything he'd found on the internet. "About this whole hermit in the studio thing?"

"Oh, that." Eyes sparked, and Brad flexed his fingers before lacing them together and resting his chin on them, leaning towards Adam and lowering his voice. "Totally true, apparently. Mandy says she hasn't even seen him for four days, he's turned his phone off, and Navarre's turning people away from the studio."

Navarre, right, he knew that name, studio owner. That meant Allen had somehow managed to pull some serious strings to get the place to himself. That made him more of a player in the industry than Adam had expected - not just a great songwriter, but well connected. "I have someone who can deal with Navarre," Adam said confidently.

"Yeah, but why would you _want_ to?" Brad shuddered. "I mean, it's not like his little studio's ever produced anything worth...wait. Wait. _Wait_. Hold the fuck up here, _you're_ interested in Kris Allen?"

Fuck. "I've got him under contract." Adam covered that slip as best he could, trying his hardest to pull off nonchalant while wearing a white terry robe and with a headband holding his hair back from his un-made-up, slightly shining face. "He's writing my next single. Or he was meant to be, before this whole seclusion shit happened."

"So send in the lawyers, don't get _your_ delicate hands dirty." Brad paused, a pair of grapes dangling from their stems in his fingers. "You're gonna go straight in and do it yourself anyway, right?"

Shit, Brad really did know him too well. "Yeah. Lawyers are gonna take way too long, we've already got a release date announced..."

"Not for _months_." Brad lifted the grapes to eye level, watching Adam instead of the fruit. "Yeah, yeah, bullshit bullshit, time is money, you know how long it takes to produce a track, marketing, bullshit bullshit. You've got his balls in this contract already, right?"

"Well, duh." He could afford the good contract lawyers now.

Brad nodded, and sucked one of the grapes from its stem with a soft, audible pop. Adam tried not to cross his eyes at the sudden, very sharp wash of nostalgia, and given the way Brad's dark eyes lit up with mischief, there was no way Brad hadn't noticed his reaction, teasing fuck. "So why are you even bothering to... Oh, forget it, you're hooked, and I _know_ he's about as much your type as if you'd mail-ordered him customized. Call me if you _really_ need the gossip."

Adam really, really needed the gossip, but he'd given away enough already for one day. Not that he didn't trust Brad, but his ex had a weird sense of humor sometimes. Still, there was one more thing he wanted to know. "How long since the divorce?"

Brad stared at him for a moment in complete silence then went off into peals of laughter.

"Oh, fuck you," Adam said, without heat, and stole the other grape.

~~~

Tommy wasn't answering his phone. Adam let it go through to voicemail twice before leaving a message, sent a text, then decided to play dirty and bring out the big guns.

He called Cassidy.

"'Lo?" said a sleepy voice that definitely wasn't Cassidy's. "Fuck off, we're busy... oh, _fuck_..."

Adam suppressed a laugh. Shit, Tommy had never sounded like that for him. No wonder he'd been so keen for the tour to get to an end. "Good morning to you too, honey."

"Oh, _fuck_," Tommy said again, in a completely different, more strangled, more panicked tone. "Adam, can't you... fuck..."

It was way too easy to imagine what was going on at the other end of the phone line. "I can, yeah," he agreed. "And so can you. Put him on, Tommy."

The only answer he got to that was a fading whine, a rustle, and then silence for a few seconds.

"Cass!" Adam yelled into his phone, sparing a moment to be glad he was at home and not already on his way to the studio.

Evidently the yell was loud enough to be heard, because there was another rustle, distant cursing, and then Cassidy's voice, lower and raspier than usual. "Call back."

"Nope," Adam said cheerfully. Hey, Cassidy hadn't hung up, and neither had Tommy, which meant they had to be good with him overhearing whatever they were doing (and his imagination and memory were both pretty good on those points), and Adam liked to know his friends were happy. He was just generous that way. "I need you."

"Busy right now," Cassidy managed, sounding distinctly distracted.

Adam guessed that Tommy was returning the distraction favor. He grinned at his phone and pressed his free hand against his dick, heel of his hand hard against his zipper. "Can you be un-busy in about an hour?"

There was a low groan, a curse Adam couldn't quite make out, and then a breathless whimper which could have come from either Tommy or Cassidy, for all he could do to identify the sound. "Un-busy in five minutes. Call _back_."

The line went dead. Adam laughed, dropped his phone on the couch, and spent a blissful three minutes in memory, one minute clearing up, then zipped his pants and called back.

"Day off," Tommy's voice complained.

"I called Cassidy," Adam said mildly. "You guys really want a day off of being my friends?" It was a low blow, and he knew it, but that wasn't going to stop him playing it. Besides, Cassidy and Tommy had had the whole day before to have reunion sex.

"Bitch," Tommy said half-heartedly and sighed.

A moment later Cassidy's voice came through the phone, low and rough and sounding resigned. "Honey, I love you, but this'd better be fucking good."

"It's good," Adam promised. "I need to get into Navarre's studio and I need back-up."

Cassidy groaned, and that one didn't sound like a fun groan. "If you wanna get into Navarre's studio, you're gonna need more than back-up. Did you call Brad?"

"Yeah." Well. Kind of. "I talked to him yesterday. Cassidy, this is _important_."

"Important enough to need both of us?"

Adam considered. He didn't really want to pull Tommy back into band mode, but he didn't want to separate Cassidy and Tommy on one of the few days they got to spend together, either. "Yeah," he decided eventually. "Please?"

"You owe us," Cassidy warned. "You said an hour, right?"

"An hour at Navarre's." Adam closed his eyes and leaned back, unreasonably relieved, and wondered when Cassidy and Tommy had turned into an 'us'. "I love you both."

"Love us with coffee and breakfast waiting," Cassidy told him firmly, and hung up.

~~~

Navarre was one of the smaller studios, stuck out in Burbank of all ungodly places. Past all the TV studios, it lurked at the end of a cul-de-sac, large, ornate gates blocking further access. When Adam got there, bearing a couple of paper bags holding the requested breakfast and a tray of coffee, Brad was already at the gates, hands on his hips, one hip thrust out. Adam reflected that he probably knew Brad too well if he could read exactly how annoyed Brad was just from his posture. It was also pretty easy to guess that the security guy had to be really fucking annoying to have managed to get the hip out already.

Adam didn't tap Brad on the shoulder - because he wanted to keep his fingers, thanks - but he did clear his throat loudly enough to get a flickered glance that made sure Brad knew he was there. "Wheatgrass smoothie?" he offered.

Brad held up one finger in acknowledgment, ran to the end of his sentence, and then turned his back on the doorman to take the offered smoothie, practically quivering with righteous annoyance. "Bitch thinks he can keep us out."

That wasn't exactly a surprise. Not welcome, but not a surprise. Adam nodded, wistfully sniffed the coffee he'd brought for Cassidy and Tommy, and sucked at the straw protruding from the lid of his own smoothie. "How about taking a note in?"

"What is this, eighth grade? You know, I hear they even have cell phones in schools these days. How about you calling in?" Brad said acidly, popped the top off his smoothie, and stabbed the straw in with a certain amount of viciousness.

"No one answers." Adam gave a one-shouldered shrug, careful not to spill the coffee. "I'm pretty sure they wouldn't read letters, either."

"Well, duh, welcome to the digital age." Brad's eyes narrowed as he sucked at his straw, cheeks hollowing. "Can you manage to look dignified?"

Adam did his best to look affronted, and suspected that he'd failed. Obviously he should have put on more of a show, but the full glam effect had seemed like overkill for Burbank on a Monday morning. He'd honestly thought the skin-tight, artfully embroidered jeans, three inch platforms and five inch heels, rhinestone t-shirt, three necklaces and full make-up was impressive enough for Navarre and Kris Allen. He'd somehow missed the part where it wasn't likely to be anywhere near enough for Brad's sensibilities. "Who's the guy on the gate?"

Brad sighed, squinted down at his smoothie and stirred it with the straw. "Some moron who doesn't even _recognize_ me. Okay, so that's a no on dignified. How about pulling the diva act?"

"He can totally do diva," Tommy said, and Adam turned, grinning at the sight of Tommy looking thoroughly fucked and even tinier than usual pressed against Cassidy's side. Both of them had obvious bite marks showing, Tommy's lips were swollen, and Cassidy's hair was nowhere near as precisely styled as usual.

"Expert," Cassidy agreed and claimed their coffee from Adam. He passed the bag of breakfast over to Tommy, who made ridiculously adorable happy sounds over the discovery of a breakfast burrito, which disappeared in short order.

Adam laughed, left the coffee tray with Cassidy, and nodded to Brad. "Let's do this."

Diva wasn't an act that Adam pulled often, despite what Perez seemed to think. He kind of hated the whole diva thing but this... this was definitely important enough to warrant it. He wanted into those studios. Adam turned his back to the gates for a few moments for emergency preparations. Using Cassidy's aviators as a mirror, he checked his hair, re-slicked his lipgloss, smoothed his eyebrows, ignored Tommy's snickers, and then stole Cassidy's aviators for use as an accessory. "You'll get them back," he said firmly, to forestall any protests, turned, and stalked towards the gates and Brad.

Brad had apparently resorted to trying to stare the guy down. (Adam was grudgingly impressed that the guy wasn't budging.) "Over to you, rock star."

Adam left a long moment of silence then moved closer to the gates - close enough to intimidate most people purely with his height - and looked down his nose at the man smirking on the other side of them. "Do you know who I am?" he enquired icily.

"Do you know who _I_ am?" the gatekeeper retorted cheekily, apparently entirely unintimidated.

Adam decided that the man had to be a moron. Not intimidated by him, fine, not intimidated by Brad, more impressive, but not intimidated by both of them together? He slid the shades down his nose just far enough to peer at the gatekeeper over them. "The man keeping me out of Navarre's studio."

The gatekeeper actually winked. "That's right, sunshine, but you can call me Don."

"I can call you a fucking pain in my ass," Adam snapped. "I need to speak to Kris Allen, and I need to speak to Kris Allen _now_."

"Tough luck, princess," Don said cheerfully. "He's made a vow."

A vow, seriously? Who even did that shit any more since the Middle Ages ended? "He also signed a contract," Adam said silkily, ignoring the giggles coming from Brad's direction. "For me."

For the first time, Don actually looked less than entirely confident. "A contract?"

"That's right, a contract," Brad repeated gleefully. "You know indie-boy in there's got to deliver a song by the end of June? I mean, you're gonna be fine with him kicking your fat ass out for not letting in someone he's working with, right?"

"No one mentioned anyone else." Don wavered for a moment then shook his head stubbornly. "Still can't let you in. I gave my word."

Adam wondered for a moment if the whole studio had dropped back into the age of chivalry. "Then don't let us in. Let Kris Allen know I'm here to talk about the single. It's not like we're gonna climb over the gates."

Don looked at Adam's boots. Brad looked as close to impassive as he ever got. Adam ignored the sounds of Cassidy and Tommy murmuring to each other behind him, and waited. Okay, he didn't do this with everyone who'd signed a contract to write for him. If people got in touch, he was free and easy about the deadlines, renegotiations, whatever, but somehow Kris Allen had managed to get under Adam's skin before they'd even spoken, and Adam was determined to get him out again. However it happened.

He couldn't remember it ever being so hard just getting to _talk_ to someone. Not since he'd managed to get signed the first time, anyway. "Let him know I'm here," Adam repeated, steady and firm.

Don still looked suspicious. "Okay. But there's CCTV on those gates."

"Oh, please," Brad said dismissively. "Do we _look_ like we're gonna try to climb over the gates?"

Don looked Adam up and down once more, apparently doubtful, and retreated.

"When the fuck did Navarre turn into Fort Knox?" Adam asked, bewildered.

"When Mr. Kris Allen desired it so," Brad said, speculatively eyeing the gates. Adam tried not to remember the distant times when they _had_ climbed over gates, the resulting damage to his clothing, and exactly how Brad had made that up to him once they were home and safe. "Sounds like your honey-bun knows _all_ the right people."

"Or he's blowing Navarre?" Tommy suggested.

"Divorced," Adam pointed out. "Straight. Also, _not_ my honey-bun."

Cassidy snorted. "So? Tommy's straight. You told all the media, remember?"

Okay, right, yeah, good point. "So how's that working out for you guys?"

Brad cleared his throat. "Yeah, because, you know, if straight boys are the matter in hand…"

"Matter in mouth," Tommy muttered, and then licked his lips and gave an angelic smile when Adam glared at him. "What?"

Cassidy didn't even try to hide his laugh. "Don't get me started on the gender binary thing. Why are we here again?"

"Back-up," Adam insisted then turned sharply at the sound of voices. Halle-fucking-lujah, Don had got the man himself out to talk to them.

Kris Allen. Slightly paler than Adam remembered, but he'd credit that to days locked inside a studio. Kris looked slightly disheveled, shirt rucked up on one side (probably from a guitar strap), and absolutely, completely, edibly, fucking gorgeous. "Mr. Lambert..."

"Adam," Adam interrupted immediately. Turning on the charm wasn't even an effort, smile warming automatically at the sight of the man who was both physically smaller and with a larger aura than Adam had remembered.

Kris paused, looked up at him sideways, ran a hand through his hair (that would explain the disheveled look), and nodded. "Adam," he corrected himself. "Look, I'm sorry."

Adam looked. Adam definitely looked, and liked what he was looking at. And what he was hearing, the faint rasp to the smoothness of Kris' voice, warm, slow with that touch of a southern accent, still discernible after however long Kris had been in LA. "You're here now, so, just let us in, and we'll work out this songwriting stuff."

"No."

Wait, what? No one even said that, right? Not flat out, not without making excuses or attempts to explain, and no one _ever_ said 'no' so bluntly and definitely to Adam. He glanced at Brad to make sure he hadn't imagined it then back at Cassidy and Tommy. All trace of laughter had disappeared, and it wasn't completely blatant shock, but there was definitely more than a hint of surprise on Tommy's face. Brad's held more displeasure, but that wasn't exactly a surprise. Cassidy had retreated behind an easy-going, unreadable mask that Adam knew better than to take at face value. "No?"

"No," Kris repeated stubbornly. "I'm sorry, Adam, but we've taken a vow."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, we _know_," Brad said, rolling his eyes. "But, you know, no girls here - shut the fuck up, Cassidy - and no booze, so you can totes let us in without breaking the vow."

Adam ignored Tommy's muttering from behind him that Adam was a walking party all on his own, and the small hip flask that nestled neatly in his jacket pocket, and that he knew damn well Cassidy's opinions on the gender binary. Instead, he focused on Kris Allen, who was chewing on his lower lip and looking more adorable than anyone over the age of eight had any right to manage. Since Kris was somehow managing insanely hot right along with adorable, Adam was prepared to give him a pass on the age thing.

Kris shook his head slowly. "Not the letter, but the spirit. I'm sorry, man, but you'd be one serious distraction in the studio."

That was when Adam caught the faintest hint of a blush on Kris' cheeks, and began to wonder. Wonderings were definitely best left to another time, though, so he pushed them away. "You signed a contract, Mr. Allen."

"Kris," Kris corrected, and actually held his hand out. Through the bars of the gate. "If you're Adam, I'm Kris."

"Kris," Adam repeated, liking the way the name felt in his mouth. He took Kris's hand, and the world stopped.

Just a touch of hands, that was all. Palm to palm, skin kissing skin, fingers curled to keep a light hold, but the flash of heat that ran from the warmth of that simple, almost formal touch shook Adam entirely. From the widening and darkening of those warm brown eyes, Kris Allen felt it too. A touch of hands, a bare few seconds too long before Adam made himself let go and tried to ignore the feeling that the universe was a colder place without that contact, but enough to change _everything_.

Which was really kind of ridiculous and not something he was about to say out loud with Brad right there, but a feeling he couldn't shake. "You signed a contract, Kris," he repeated, more softly, looking straight into Kris' eyes. "We have a deadline. And I'm sure your people explained to you that I like to collaborate on all the songs I sing. It's not as simple as you providing us with a demo and a score."

"My people?" Kris laughed and shook his head, rubbing the back of his neck with the hand that had touched Adam's. "Um, yeah, I don't have people for the music stuff, just for business. The music stuff is all me and the boys."

Whatever. He could respect that, seriously, but it just wasn't relevant." Contract," Adam said again. "Deadline. So, when can we get started?"

"Oh, hey, I know _exactly_ what Adam's doing for the next six weeks," Brad began. "I have a link to his Google calendar. He's got time for..."

"Lose it," Adam ordered, without looking away from Kris. Shit, he'd pay for that later, especially from Brad, but hey, he was prepared to be a little flexible here. "We'll work around Kris' schedule, since he's made a vow."

He seriously still wasn't getting past that. A vow, of all fucking things, to get an album recorded. People made contracts, not vows, to get music produced and released.

"If..." Kris started to look hopeful. "Look, it's just four weeks from now, right, and after that I can give you as much of my time as you want."

"No deal," Adam said firmly, before Brad could even speak and yeah, he was racking up the debts here because he was _certain_ that Brad would have had innuendo lined up and ready to go on that promise. "We've got to have a rough demo laid down in four weeks so we can start talking to producers about possible remixes."

Brad laid his hand on Adam's arm, not particularly gently. "Oh, whatever, there are other songwriters."

"But I want to work with this one," Adam said stubbornly. Hey, Brad had wanted diva, he was getting it. "Unless he doesn't want to work with me?" He tilted his head, eyebrows raised, ignored the fact that Brad was going to leave fucking bruises on his arm because even if Kris was completely his type, Brad didn't get to be jealous any more, and waited for a response from Kris.

"Maybe Tommy's scaring him off," Cassidy suggested, barely stifled laughter warming his voice.

"Tommy?" Kris asked, looking past Adam for the first time.

Adam didn't exactly relish losing Kris' attention, but he was going to have to share it some time. Oh, yeah, he'd brought back-up, he'd use them. "My bass player," he said nonchalantly and held his hand out for Tommy. "Tommy Joe Ratliff, Kris Allen. Come say hello."

They'd done this too many times on stage to fuck it up for an audience of one. Tommy took Adam's hand and pressed in close against his side, head leaning against Adam's shoulder so his hair fell forwards into his face. Adam slid his arm around Tommy, hand splayed wide on Tommy's hip, and winked down at him before looking back at Kris. "I promise he doesn't bite." Adam's smile darkened. "Unless you ask him _really_ nicely."

Kris looked like he was about to go up in flames. Adam let himself wonder exactly how far down that blush went, and how the hell Kris had survived this many years in LA, never mind the music industry, and managed to stay so sheltered.

"Pleasure," Tommy drawled, and held his free hand out to Kris.

Kris took it, still looking stunned, but not, Adam was pleased to notice, reacting to Tommy's handshake anywhere near as much as he had to Adam's. "Likewise," he said faintly. "Uh...I'd be working with both of you?"

"Oh, I'd want you to meet the whole band," Adam assured him evilly, going with the fact that Kris was pretty obviously assuming the 'whole band' would work on the same kind of dynamic he and Tommy were displaying. "You're gonna need to know what they can do to write something that's gonna work for all of us, right?"

"I, uh...usually just..." Kris swallowed visibly. "Write the song and let you deal with arrangements and stuff."

Oh, that was just perfect. Kris Allen standing there all distracted and rattled, with no people to get in the way of plans. Adam grinned. "Well, I guess...I know what they can do, right, Tommy?"

Tommy rubbed against Adam's side and gave him a sleepy smile. "I can remind you?"

Adam choked back laughter, both at Tommy's display and Kris' open reaction to it. "Maybe later, glitterbaby. So, Kris, I can let you know about that, so it's just the two of us to work on this, right?"

"Right," Kris agreed, still looking at Tommy. "I mean, right?"

"Right," Adam said, satisfied, and let go of Tommy, who didn't go anywhere. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Tomorrow?" Kris shook himself. "Wait, no, I've got studio time booked with the band until four and - "

"Four's perfect," Adam said instantly, before Kris could think of any other objections. "Brad?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm sure you'll be awake again by four," Brad said dryly. "Heard and witnessed."

Keep it fast, keep it simple, and quit while he was ahead. Adam gave Kris a brilliant smile. "That's settled, then. Pleasure doing business with you, Kris."

Leaving a slightly dazed looking Kris behind the gates, Adam turned Tommy and Brad around smartly, and started walking away before Kris could get enough composure back to protest. "I think," he said, with satisfaction, "we've got him."

Brad snorted. "You've got something all right. Are you gonna send a car for him, too, to make super sure he turns up?"

Adam was nearly sure that was sarcasm, but it sounded like a pretty good idea anyway. "I'll get Traci on it. And a male driver in case a woman would count as breaking his vow." He let go of Brad enough to sling an arm around Cassidy's shoulders on his way back to the car. "Can I drop you guys off some place?"

~~~

It turned out he could, which was really the least Adam could do considering Cassidy was open-minded enough to let Adam grope his boyfriend as a distraction tactic. Or whatever label Cassidy and Tommy decided to put on it, since Adam was pretty sure that neither of them would agree to anything as straightforward as 'boyfriend'. Brad had said something vague about a contact and disappeared off into Burbank to do something that Adam was pretty sure he didn't want to know about.

Cassidy paused on his way out of the car, leaning over to look back through the window at Adam. "You know there are other songwriters, right?"

None of them, though, were Kris Allen. "We've got a contract," Adam said, trying not to sound defensive.

"Bullshit," Cassidy told him, arms folded over his head, resting against the roof of the car. "Bull-fucking-shit, Adam. You could take that up another time, you could reschedule, you could work with someone else. Don't fucking tell me it's about the contract."

Adam tried not to squirm. Cassidy saw way too much, always had. It was one of the things he loved about Cassidy, but it made things kind of awkward sometimes when Adam was still busy telling himself it was all about business. "We had a contract and he didn't tell me he was going to shut himself away for a month to work on his own stuff."

"Why should he? Don't say contract, lie to yourself if you've gotta, but don't lie to me. This isn't because he said no to you, you're not that petty," Cassidy said gently. "And I'm pretty sure it wasn't for Brad's benefit, this time. Don't fuck with the straight boys, baby."

Been there, done that, got his dick burned and learned his lesson. "So now you're talking about fixed sexuality?"

"Adam..." Cassidy closed his eyes, then his body flexed gently and Tommy's face appeared under his arm, peering through the open window.

"Some shit going on here?" he asked. "Come the fuck inside, it's hot as a builder's pits out here."

And the A/C in the car didn't do shit with the window open. "Just some stuff," Adam said, reaching out to touch Tommy's hair and then turning that into an excuse to tickle Cassidy's side and make him yelp. "We're good. Go have sex or something."

"Pity the poor lonely rock star," Tommy said dryly, and withdrew, his arm slipping around Cassidy's waist to tug at him. "C'mon, sugar, Adam wants to get his Greta Garbo on."

Ticklish or not, Cassidy waited a moment longer. "Sure you're okay?"

Adam leaned up, and kissed his cheek. "I just really wanna work with this guy, Cass. I've waited long enough."

Cassidy nodded slowly, claimed his shades back, and peeled himself away from the side of the car. "As long as you know what you've been waiting for."

Typical Cassidy riddles, and uncomfortable thoughts Adam didn't want to be having. "Go fuck Tommy, I don't want a bitchy bass player tomorrow."

"He's got a bitchy singer," Cassidy pointed out waspishly, and went.

Adam dropped back against the seat, sighed, and pulled his phone out. `you okay?` he typed.

The answers came back within the minute.

`you're still a bitch. love you anyway. C`   
`better get laid b4 2mo, bb boy.`

That got a wry smile. Adam locked his phone and told the driver to take him home.

Laid. The whole rock star thing didn't have many downsides, but that was definitely one of them. He couldn't even remember the last time he got laid apart from a few friendly fucks with people he trusted, and that wasn't likely to change any time soon.

A flash of memory gifted him with the startled heat in Kris Allen's eyes from the moment they'd touched, and Adam let himself wonder.

~~~

There wasn't much point in calling the band into rehearsal without a song to work on. Everyone was sick to the back teeth of everything they'd been playing on tour and sure, at some point it was going to be fun to get together just to play around, but that point wasn't going to happen until the gnarls of sharing a bus for six months had faded a little further into memory. Adam sent out an e-mail officially giving the guys the rest of the week off, copied in Lane and Traci, made it clear he wasn't going to be doing any promotional shit until at least the following Monday, and then made extra certain that the band knew by following up with texts.

He figured they'd all be grateful for more time to spend on their own projects, anyway. Fuck, the only person who didn't have a side project was Adam himself. Monte had his band and his family, Cam had her duo, LP had his weird fusion thing and his wife, Tommy had his metal group and Cassidy, and Adam had... them.

The day passed slowly. Adam knew it was pretty much a side-effect of being back from tour, but he couldn't settle to anything. Movies he usually loved lost his interest after maybe half an hour at most. The internet was full of people talking shit, he couldn't face Twitter, Danielle was out of town and out of contact, and he eventually resorted to sorting through his closet. There were always more clothes than he could ever actually remember to wear, mostly because people gave him stuff, which was sweet of them, but somehow never quite the things he'd choose for himself. Still, he usually kept them because, well, they'd been gifts, and sometimes they came in useful for costumes. Now, though, it was time for a clearout. He could give them to a charity auction or something, and meanwhile rediscover some of the clothes he _did_ love and organize them so that he'd be able to find them next time he wanted them.

When the doorbell finally sounded, he was in the middle of a storm of clothes, shoes, boots and jewelry, several bags overflowing and leaning against the door to block his way out. Well, whatever, he could heroically move them and escape the trap, but it meant he took a couple of minutes getting down to open the door to discover a cross-looking Kris Allen on his doorstep, a battered guitar case clutched protectively in front of him.

And looking painfully cute.

Adam squashed that thought at the decidedly uncute expression on Kris' face. "Sorry, I was kinda...there were clothes," he said lamely, wondering why he even felt the need to try and explain.

"You mean you don't have someone to open the door _for_ you?" Kris said acidly.

Adam blinked. "Uh, no. C'mon in." Seriously, someone to open the door, like a butler or some shit? So not his style.

Kris just looked at him for a couple of silent seconds then went in, still holding his guitar case like a shield. "A driver," he said flatly. "You sent a _car_ to pick me up, with a driver."

"Unless you want your name all over the gossip rags and the blogs, honey, it's better than me coming to pick you up myself." Adam shrugged, turned his back on Kris, and headed towards the music room.

"You didn't trust me to turn up on my own?" There was definitely a trace of something not entirely happy in Kris' voice, and trust, seriously?

Adam stopped by the door to the studio, hand on the handle, and looked back at Kris. "Okay, we have _so_ not gotten off to a good start, but I'm not gonna point out the whole potential contract breach thing as an example of why I shouldn't trust you, and cut straight to: my car gets you past my security without shit, and I figured you could probably use a break after spending all day in the studio instead of dealing with driving, finding this place, and getting past Ben on the gates." He hadn't hired Ben for his cuddly and welcoming demeanor, after all.

Kris pressed his (seriously rather tempting) lips together in a flat line. "Next time, I'm driving myself."

Oh, seriously, whatever. "If that's what you want." Adam shrugged. "I'll tell Ben to expect you about four thirty, just leave the license plate number so I can let him know what car to look out for."

"Just like that?" Kris blinked up at him, and Adam tried not to notice that he had unusually long and beautiful eyelashes. "Do you even get why it bothers me?"

"Can we do the high-maintenance stuff _after_ we work?" Adam asked pointedly. He was beginning to wonder what had crawled up Kris' ass and died, because he'd swear he'd had less shit from his last boyfriend. Given that his last actual boyfriend had been Brad (again) that was saying something.

Kris just looked at him for a moment then sagged slightly. "Sure, whatever. Lead the way."

There was something about that sag that tugged at Adam's heart for a moment before he managed to dismiss it and open the door. Okay, so he still couldn't play much, but his music room was his sanctuary. A battered upright piano stood against one wall, a couple of guitars and a bass in a stand next to it, and across from that, a rack of amps and a digital keyboard, all wired through to the mixing desk. The output from that was cabled to the computer that hummed softly in the corner. The electronic drum kit was still in pieces, mostly because LP refused to use it. Instead, a scrap of old carpet waited for an acoustic kit.

Behind the door was an old desk covered in sheets of paper, scribbled lyrics and scraps of manuscript and tab, overladen shelves bowing on the wall above it. Adam headed straight to the chair next to the desk, leaving Kris to follow him in and take whatever chair or stool he was comfortable in.

Kris shut the door and leaned back against it, looking around the studio for a long, silent moment. "You always work from here?"

"For start-ups, yeah." Adam tried not to read into the silence or the question, but... Okay, it wasn't quite true. Usually for start-ups he was writing himself, or with the band, so it happened in his own studio, in his own home. Collaborations generally took place elsewhere.

"Not rehearsal rooms, or studios..." Kris dropped down to one knee, setting his guitar case down and opening it. Adam briefly regretted the direction Kris was facing in, because it meant that he didn't get the full glory of Kris' jeans pulling tight over his ass. The back of the guitar case blocked his view of the contents, and he kind of wanted to know if Kris was a super-neat-freak like Monte, or more like Tommy, with his case overflowing with spare picks, strings, scraps of paper, photos, cigarette papers, pencils, and anything else that seemed like a good idea at the time.

He only regretted and considered briefly, because that was all that he'd allow himself before a stern self-reminder that this was _work_ and he needed to be professional with this guy, who didn't seem to like him anyway. "I figured you'd seen enough of that kind of thing for the day, and this way we don't get interrupted." Probably. He'd turned his phone off, anyway. "So, show me what you got."

"You want a collaboration but you want me to have a start right now?" Kris asked incredulously. He stood up, guitar strap sliding over his hair to settle on his shoulder and telling Adam exactly how both his hair and shirt had gotten mussed before. "After I spent the last eight hours in a studio working on my own stuff?"

"You started that early?" Adam blurted out, shocked (and reluctantly impressed). "And yeah, after you spent... God, tell me you at least broke for lunch?"

"Man, you're my employer, not my mom." Kris rolled his eyes and settled on a stool, one sneakered foot tucked up to rest on the bar between legs, guitar cradled on his raised thigh. "Besides, Cale would have my balls if I tried to make him work through without food."

Oh, that was totally an invitation Adam couldn't pass up. He leaned back in his chair, peering between Kris' parted knees, trying to see under the guitar.

Kris noticed, and shifted position with an awkward laugh. "What?"

"Checking if they're still there," Adam said earnestly.

Kris stared for a moment, then grinned, struck a chord, and began singing. Falsetto.

Adam cracked up. Yeah, he could work with that.

~~~

The first session went easier and faster than Adam had expected. Sure, they didn't get too far on the song, but he hadn't expected anything concrete out of the first couple of hours. Just a feel for the way Kris worked, find a way they could work together, and that happened more smoothly than he'd guessed. Kris's chords inspired rhythms that Adam tapped on the edge of the desk, or his own thigh, until they slid into the pattern of Kris's strumming to form fragments of something that could turn into a verse, or a chorus, or a hook, or a bridge. Building blocks to be put together later.

One section caught his ear, a slide of harmony that hadn't gone exactly where he expected, and he stopped, head tilted, to try to work it out. "Play that again?"

Kris's hand flattened on the strings, silencing the reverb, but he didn't look up. "Which bit?"

"That last four bars, maybe eight?" He hadn't been paying enough attention to be able to say exactly where it had slipped.

The four bar section didn't catch the change. Adam shook his head impatiently and scooted his chair closer. "More."

"Please," Kris added almost absently.

Adam's eyebrows rose. "Bitch, my manners are perfect. Play more."

Kris looked up, full lips twitching as if he was trying not to smile. "Yeah, because everyone loves being called bitch and given orders."

"Kris." Fuck, was it really that important? His mom had made sure that he had perfect manners, but there was a time and a place. (Not thinking about the kind of time and place that would involve giving Kris orders, really not.) "Just play it before we both forget it."

Kris didn't play.

Adam gave. "Whatever. _Please_ play it."

It was worth it to see that smile escape, warming Kris' entire face. "Thanks," Kris said softly, dipped his head to look back at his fingers and closed his eyes. After a few false starts, he found the sequence again, and looped it, eight bars repeating. Not going anywhere, not enough to be anything substantial, just...

"It's not quite..." Adam shook his head. "Can you... Around the third bar, something's jarring a bit, are you in tune?"

"Bitch, please, my tuning is perfect," Kris said, with a perfectly straight face, then lifted his head to give Adam a sly smile and started the sequence again. Yeah, that was it, that slight change. Adam couldn't have said exactly _what_ he'd changed, but it was _right_.

"Perfect." He grinned, and then laughed, simple happiness and satisfaction escaping. He scooted his chair back to his desk and reached out to hit the record button. "Keep it going, maybe three times through?"

"I am _not_ writing a twelve bar blues for Adam Lambert," Kris said firmly, but he played it through. Three times exactly, before spinning off into something that it took Adam about three beats to recognize as the opening to _Sunshine of Your Love_.

~~~

That first loop wasn't all they got recorded on the first session. By Wednesday, they had enough ideas that they both agreed on to start stringing something together, enough to give a mood and a flavor of the song. It definitely wasn't Adam's usual style, that was for sure, but that was what he'd wanted from working with Kris. Something _different_.

What they were headed for was something less rock, more raw. A mood Adam had approached in some of his covers, but never in original songs. Something almost melancholy, an emotional truth without the sexual overtones that usually laced through his music. Sensual, yeah, but nothing overt. More subtle.

"So if we run that D minor section into..." Adam tucked his pencil behind his ear and flicked through a couple of pages on his notepad. "Shit, where did we put the F sharp stuff?"

"At the end of yesterday?" Kris yawned and rubbed his eyes, looking for all the world like a sleepy kitten. "Try going back from the G sequence that didn't work."

"Right, yeah." Adam pushed away the urge to pet Kris, frowned in concentration and went back to find the scribbled reference. That led him to the right file, and he played it back to settle it in his memory again. "Can we link those together?"

Kris was already picking out the chord shapes, hunched around his guitar. "It's not a conventional key change, even for a bridge."

"Fuck convention, can we make it work?" Convention was boring, and if they were going for different...

"Convention's there for a reason," Kris said mildly, strumming between the chords that even Adam could tell didn't feel like a natural sequence. "Do you really want that pitch, or is it the shape and the rhythm?"

"The rhythm," Adam admitted with a sigh. "The pitch is good, but I'm not one hundred percent it's gotta be there."

Kris nodded, frowning. "What's good about the pitch?"

Which was when Adam realized that he hadn't actually sung anything in front of Kris yet. "It's good for my voice, high enough to cut through the band without having to amp it up too much, but it's not gonna push me into falsetto yet. Though Tommy and Monte aren't gonna be happy if I give them anything in D, either..."

"Well, yeah." Another couple of chords, and Kris shifted on the stool. "How much higher can you go before the falsetto starts?"

"I guess it depends where the melody line lands." Which wasn't set yet, so why was he even going there? "Can we just find a way to link those together?"

"We can try." Kris settled his guitar back into place, playing around with chords, up a tone, down, adding in passing notes.

Adam watched his fingers move over the strings and tried not to get distracted by imagining what else they could do or what those calluses might feel like touching his skin. He wasn't very successful, and had to shift his own position a couple of times to resettle the fit of his jeans and stop his reaction to Kris from being too blatantly obvious.

Eventually, Kris lifted his head and nodded. "This work?"

The chords _had_ moved. The transition changed as well, the shift in rhythm making a stronger contrast than Adam had expected, and he smiled, nodding along. "Yeah. Yeah, that works. Keep it going?" He paused, and caught Kris' eye. "Please?"

Kris laughed softly, grinned back at him, and did _something_ fiddly to cycle back to the first section and keep it going around. Adam took a deep breath, nodded once, and closed his eyes to focus in more closely on the music, on the sound rather than the distraction of Kris' fingers. The second time the sequence began, he started humming, soft and under his breath. At first, he simply followed the chord sequence, then began to break away, experimenting, working around that to start finding a melody line. A shift here, a lift there, hold the dissonance, lips parting to actually sing once he'd found a confidence and certainty in the music - which promptly stopped.

Adam opened his eyes to look at Kris to find out what had happened and if he was okay, and found Kris staring at him, eyes round and dark, lips parted enough that he could see the shine of white teeth between them. "Kris?"

"You can really sing," Kris said softly. He didn't sound surprised, but it did sound like a discovery, and one that Kris was very definitely happy about. "I mean, _really_."

"Well, yeah." Adam arched an eyebrow at Kris, his head tilted sideways as he tried to figure out that reaction. "I mean, I've sold a few albums..."

Kris lifted his hand away from the body of his guitar, waving it vaguely at Adam. "Well, yeah, but you know, there's autotune, and post-processing, and these so-called live shows that are just artists miming along to a backing track..."

"Kristopher Allen, you wash your mouth out right now!" Adam drew himself up, horrified and not quite sure how insulted he was. "Autotune is a dirty word in this house, young man."

Kris dipped his head and bit his lip, shaking his head. "Yeah. I. Sorry, I just... I didn't think it could be _real_."

Probably not insulted, then. That was a compliment, right? Almost definitely a compliment. "Oh, honey, it's all one hundred percent real, genuine me."

"I get that now." Kris chuckled, fidgeting on his seat like he was uncomfortable. "You're good."

Somehow, that quiet, simple compliment cut through every one of Adam's defenses to lodge in his heart and mean more than any of the most fulsome reviews ever had. "Thanks," he said, more gently. "You're not bad yourself, you know?"

"I know," Kris agreed and met Adam's eyes, silent for a moment before he deliberately looked away, starting to play again. "Gimme that again? Please?"

~~~

When Adam took a break for lunch on Friday, there were four designer cases filled to capacity with clothes, shoes and jewelry that he was more than ready to see the back of. It was probably about as much as he was going to get together. That meant it was time to suck it up, break radio silence and call Traci.

He dragged the cases downstairs first, leaving them in the hallway, then went through to the kitchen so he could forage for food while he was making the call. Phone in one hand, he listened to the regular tones of a call waiting to connect, and surveyed the rather barren contents of his fridge. "C'mon, c'mon, pick _up_... Traci, hey! How are you doing, honey?"

"Don't you 'honey' me," Traci said waspishly, and Adam was thankful for the distance between them because, yeah, he should have kept track of the time of the month. He'd need to send her a candy basket to sweeten her up. "Adam, you can't _do_ this disappearing diva shit, you've got responsibilities, you've got commitments, you've got..."

"A single to write?" he interrupted. "Traci, I love you, you're wonderful, but I've gotta have time to actually make the music sometimes, all right?" That and actually eat, sleep, do all the things necessary to maintain his human body because he wasn't actually a robot and Traci was efficient, yeah, but surely he hadn't upset Lane enough to need someone riding his ass quite so hard.

"And I need to know where you are and what you're doing and that you'll _answer your phone_ when I call." Traci was apparently not convinced by his argument. "I have a schedule from Lane, we _have_ to keep you to it, do you have any idea how much work we have to do if you don't turn up for an interview?"

More than he had to do if he turned up to one, that was for sure. Adam sighed silently, closed the fridge, and went through to the living room to find his laptop. "Did I miss any?"

"No, we got your message, everything's been rescheduled but we need more notice than this, you can't just drop off the radar, your security wouldn't even let me _in_."

Adam made a mental note to give Ben some kind of bonus. "He must have misunderstood," he said diplomatically. "I just needed a few days downtime, and I have to concentrate on the music for a while so I've got something to talk _about_ in these interviews, yeah? Anyway, I need you to talk to Lane, we've got something to set up."

"What _kind_ of something?" Traci asked suspiciously. "What did you do? Who do we have to placate?"

Shit, he really wasn't _that_ bad, he wasn't Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton that he needed a babysitter all the time. "No one! I've just done some sorting out, there are some clothes, I thought we could auction them and put the proceeds towards the Donors Choose thing that the fans set up?"

There was the sound of a sigh in his ear, and Adam wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He powered the laptop up anyway, and perched on the edge of his sofa while it did its start-up jingly thing, keeping the phone far enough from it that Traci probably couldn't hear it. "Traci?"

"It's not _quite_ that simple." There was silence for a few moments. "If there's anything special in there we can donate it for competition prizes and keep your media profile high, but for some of those pieces... I'm going to need to see them in case there's anything you've been given as a gift."

Nothing was _ever_ that simple for him any more. "Sure," he agreed. "I've got them all packed up. Can you come collect them today?" Browser open, right, now, what was that place she'd liked so much? Belgian candy of some kind?

"It's not like I'm doing anything else right now." Some of the sting had gone from her tone, and Adam held his breath. "I can be there about three?"

Okay, that would work. "Three's perfect. And no competitions, I want all of this to go to charity. And can you be gone by four?"

"I'll talk to Lane," Traci said slowly. "What's happening at four?"

Sometimes, Adam began to understand why Kris had taken a vow. It meant he didn't have to deal with all the publicity stuff at the same time as trying to make music. "I'm working with Kris Allen, his vow says no girls?"

"Oh, my God." Another silence, and he'd have to breathe again soon or he'd turn blue. Blue was so not a good color for him. "I think you just made me grateful I'm working for you and not him. I'll be gone by four."

"_Thank_ you," Adam said, relieved, and started breathing again. "Love you, bye!"

He ordered Traci's candy basket for immediate delivery, a voucher for a spa day for Lane, and wondered how much work they'd both been doing to keep his PR at bay.

~~~

Adam really hadn't been exaggerating to Traci. Sorting the clothes had been more like distraction therapy, but he'd also needed the last week to begin to take care of himself again. Getting some sleep, decent nutrition, and regular morning gym sessions started the work on getting his body back into the shape he'd lost during the tour due to irregular food and even more irregular exercise. Dancing on stage kept him more or less in tone, but the sheer intensity of touring wore him down and he needed to take some time to invest in his body before he broke down completely.

Most of his afternoons were spent in the studio, working on lyrics and scraps of melody, phrases that fit around chord sequences and words Kris left both on file and in Adam's head until Kris turned up. Every day, he showed up as promised in his own car, spent three hours in the studio with Adam, and then, quietly, politely and above all, firmly, packed his guitar away and left.

On the Friday, while Kris packed away his guitar, Adam saved the files as usual, pushed the notepad away (it was always easier trying to write lyrics by hand than on a keyboard), and stood up. "No partying, right?"

Kris looked up from his crouch by his guitar case and blinked a couple of times. "Right. And no alcohol."

Adam grinned. "How about weed?"

"It's kinda not specifically mentioned, but..." Kris shook his head. "Nah, it's in the spirit of it. It's about focus and dedication and really being completely in the music, no hangovers or anything to distract us."

Well, it had been worth trying. "So, Mr. No-parties-no-drinks-no-pot-no-girls, what are you gonna do with your Friday night?"

"Uh..." Kris sat back on his heels, absently folding his guitar strap. Adam forced himself not to get distracted by the way Kris' fingers moved over the worn leather. "I guess maybe catch a movie, call my mom..."

"You really know how to live," Adam teased. "Call your mom?"

"Well, I'm not gonna be spending tonight with the guys after being in a studio with them all week, everyone's gonna wanna cut loose some," Kris said, sounding absolutely reasonable for a guy who'd made his bandmates share his vow to avoid parties, alcohol and girls.

"A movie and calling your mom isn't cutting loose," Adam said firmly, and wondered again how Kris Allen even survived in the music business.

Kris shook his head and tucked the strap away in his case, much to Adam's disappointment. "It's as loose as I'm gonna get this month. What about you, some high profile party and a wild night ahead?"

Okay, so there were a few parties Adam could go to, if he wanted to go to a party, and there were people he could call if he wanted to be around people, but... Maybe it was still post-tour lag or something. He didn't want to hit the parties and the clubs or surround himself with the glitteringly fabulous crowd. He wanted... "Not exactly, but there's this one really cute guy that I was gonna invite for dinner. Except he might not wanna spend tonight with me."

"Wow, your ego must be suffering deeply," Kris deadpanned. He latched the case, and stood up. "Why not?"

Adam sat down again, leaning back in his desk chair, fingers tracing over a seam in the plastic arm. "I guess I've been kind of a dick to him some this week."

"Someone you blew off to work?" Kris shrugged. "If he doesn't get that, then he's the dick, not you."

"No," Adam said softly. He took a slow, deep breath, feeling his ribcage expanding with it, letting the simple act of breathing center him, and kept his eyes steady on Kris' face. "I've been making decisions for him instead of collaborating."

Kris Allen might have been a lot of things, but he clearly wasn't anywhere near stupid. "Oh," he said eloquently, and slowly put his guitar case down again. "Uh, Adam..."

"I should've asked about the car," Adam continued, his voice still soft and low, his eyes still on Kris' face, noting the slight widening of Kris' eyes, the faint flick of lashes as he blinked. "But I really wanted to work with you, and I guess I thought if I gave you too much time to think about it, you'd find another way to put me off."

"So you manipulated me into it instead, because your music's more important than mine?" Kris lifted his eyebrows, hands shoved into his pockets, and okay, yeah, put like that, it did sound kind of bad.

Maybe he'd been touring too long after all. "My music _is_ yours," he went for, in the end. "That's why we're working together, right?"

Kris shook his head. "We're working together because you pulled that contract crap and I don't wanna spend months tied up in legal stuff. I figure it's quicker to work on this, get it done, and go back to the guys."

Okay, right. Adam was definitely glad he was sitting down, because that one kind of felt like a sucker punch to the gut. Muscles tensed, cold and heavy, and he stopped even _breathing_ for a moment before he could find a way to pull in a deep breath that didn't make it look completely obvious. "You really hate working with me that much?"

"I don't hate working with you," Kris said quietly, and picked up his case again. "It's just not top of my priority list right now. I've been working on songs for my own album for years, finally we get studio time together, I think everything else is clear and bang, Adam Lambert turns up to remind me that he's got my balls in a contract. So, yeah, it's not really what I wanna be doing. See you Monday? Or do you work weekends, too?"

If things were going well, yeah, Adam worked weekends. And he'd thought things were going well. The song was coming together, music and lyrics from both of them working together to form something truly organic, something that was nowhere near finished but that felt solid, something from his heart, something he could believe in, but if Kris really didn't... That was pretty definitely a no to dinner, as well. "Have you got studio time booked this weekend?"

"Yeah, we've got the place all month, it's..." Kris shrugged. "The opportunity came up, I took it."

It really wasn't the kind of opportunity that Adam was wanting from Kris right then, either. He didn't want to go into the studio with Kris, he wanted to go out with Kris, go dancing, stay in, watch movies, go to _bed_. But Kris was only there because of the contract, and his contract was keeping Kris back from making his own music. If Kris really didn't want to be around him, then he wasn't going to force it. "So take it. I can work on this and we'll pick up again next week sometime, yeah?"

"Like Monday?" Kris repeated.

Monday. Fuck, it would be so easy to say yes. Monday. It was still too far away, and that alone was enough reason to make Adam pause, even if the thought of not having a fixed time and date to see Kris again left Adam feeling kind of hollow. Hopefully that wouldn't bleed into his voice too much. "Take your opportunity, I'll call you when I've got something."

Kris didn't look convinced, but he nodded anyway. "How about if I've got something?"

Oh, Kris already had something, he just didn't know it. And probably didn't want it, which was why Adam was going to do his best to make sure Kris didn't get to know it. "Then you call me."

Kris smiled, and Adam's heart skipped a beat. Skipped a fucking beat, like he'd dropped into some song from a sixties girl group. Any moment now a trio of immaculately coiffed black girls in chiffon and sequins would appear out of nowhere to sing doo-wop harmonies. Oh, shit, he needed to get himself under control, get his head back in line. Get _laid_. That would stop him fixating on Kris Allen, right?

"I'll call you," Kris promised, with the faintest hint of a drawl, and Adam was doomed.

~~~

Adam didn't go out on Friday night. He didn't go shopping on Saturday, he didn't call people, he ignored his email and his text messages, risking Traci's recurring wrath. Instead, he turned off his phone, shut himself away in his studio and _worked_. He replayed the files he'd recorded of Kris playing, singing, harmonizing along with him, and he started pulling ideas into some kind of structure. He fed the files into his mixing software, layered them, processed them, moved them around, endlessly dissatisfied with the sound. Versions of files cluttered his hard drives, and scraps of paper with notes and ideas written on them drifted gently into piles on his desk and on the floor. He ate when he remembered to and napped on his couch because it was closer to the studio than his bed was when he woke up with more ideas. Solitude, focus, and progress.

Anyway, Kris would be in the studio with his band all weekend, so he wouldn't call. So there was no point in Adam turning on his phone just to know for sure that he still hadn't.

Adam steadfastly ignored anything else, until a hand on his shoulder some time between Saturday night and Sunday morning brought him sharply awake, flailing and falling off the couch to land heavily in front of a pair of exquisitely fitted Italian boots. One of which promptly prodded him until he groaned, rolled onto his back, and blinked blearily upwards.

Either he'd managed to get drunk along the way, he was seriously short on sleep, or Brad had multiplied since the last time he'd used his key.

"Went to sleep with your contacts in again, honey?" the central Brad inquired sweetly.

Right, that explained the bleary. Oh, shit, that meant he had about thirty seconds before his eyes really started burning. Adam made an affirmative noise, and wondered if it was worth getting up, or if he was dreaming and he could just close his eyes again and all this would go away.

"Oh, no, you don't, sleeping beauty." There was a faint rustle of fabric and leather, and then a hand in his hair, warm and gentle. "I was gonna ask where you're hiding him, but no one else is gonna be here if you're like this."

Protest would demand an explanation, so Adam just grunted and tried looking again. Not Brad. "Cass?"

"We have coherence, congratulations." Brad-who-definitely-was-Brad tapped his toe, nudging Adam with it again. "Up, bitch."

"Why are you even _here?_" Adam swatted half-heartedly at Brad's foot, more gently at Cassidy's hand, and rolled onto all fours, resisting the urge to rub his eyes.

"Says the new anchorite of Hollywood Hills," Brad said dryly.

Adam ignored him and leaned on Cassidy instead, shifting onto the couch, and yeah, there was the soreness beginning to prickle in his eyes. "What time even is it?"

"Nearly breakfast time." Cassidy moved to sit on the floor, leaning back against the couch, and patted Adam's thigh. "And you stink."

"I was _working_," Adam said with as much dignity as he could muster. Granted, that wasn't much, but it was worth the effort. He was gradually and unpleasantly becoming aware of the truth of Cassidy's words. "What is this, an intervention? Stop Adam making music night?"

"Adam's not making music." Third voice. Right. Where Cassidy was, Tommy wasn't far away. Not any more. "Adam's sleeping on his _couch_ when he's got a bed upstairs and fuck this shit, you've already got a mom and you're a big boy now."

"Don't we know it," Brad said happily. "C'mon, big boy, bathroom, then we can do the social niceties."

Adam's de-caffeinated brain automatically tagged the two together. "In the bathroom?"

"Well..." Brad began.

"No." Cassidy left his hand on Adam's leg, resting warm just above his knee. "You can stand, right? I'm not seeing any signs of you drinking yourself into a stupor, so..."

"Oh, fuck you." Yep, he was definitely awake now. There was no escaping it, and no more musical ideas. Adam sighed and stood up. "One of you bitches better have coffee ready for me when I come back."

Reaching up, Cassidy patted his ass. "Move it, hobo. Tommy?"

Adam made his escape before Tommy could protest. Experience had taught him that there was a higher chance of coffee being available when he got back than if he didn't give Tommy time to argue.

The bathroom mirror told him without pity that he looked like he hadn't slept properly, showered or shaved in two days. There was a good reason for all of that, but he could deal with at least a couple of those problems. With a sigh, he stripped out of his clothes, fought his contacts out, took care of the shower, shaved with a slight grimace at the color of the hair rinsed down the sink, and realized that he hadn't brought any clothes into the bathroom with him. It wasn't usually a concern and okay, it wasn't exactly like Brad had never seen him naked, or Tommy, or even Cassidy, but all together was kind of a different thing completely. Whatever. Skincare, drying off, then Adam wrapped the towel around his hips and opened the door to cooler air and Brad leaning against the opposite wall, smirking slightly at the sight of him.

"Still pretty," Brad observed appreciatively. "Someone's been waxing recently."

Well, yeah. Adam caught himself just before he smoothed a self-conscious hand over his own chest, remembering the hint of hair he'd seen the day Kris had worn the vee-neck t-shirt. Dark, and tempting, and distracting.

"Hey!" Brad snapped his fingers in front of Adam's face. "Don't zone out on me, bitch, it's still too early for bed."

"You never said _that_ before." Adam couldn't quite resist that. Or the fact that Brad was holding clothes. "Are those mine?"

"The jeans are." Brad held them out. "And don't even go there or I'm keeping this t-shirt. Seriously? McQueen?"

Which meant Brad did _not_ get to keep the t-shirt. The post-clearout designer gear was so not up for appropriation. "Seriously," Adam agreed, wriggled into his jeans and dropped the towel, denim catching on damp skin as he tugged them up and closed, then took the t-shirt back. "Okay, so, gimme a time check?"

Brad sighed. "Nearly four. We left the club for you, honey, you better appreciate this."

"Appreciate what?" Not worrying about the hair, he'd deal with that... "Wait, four in the morning? You guys came to wake me up at four in the morning?"

"We left the club to check on you at four in the morning," Brad corrected sharply. "The club you didn't meet us at after not answering emails or your phone for twenty-four fucking hours, princess, so the word you're looking for here is thank you. Because it was shaping up to be one hell of an epic night and do you even know what it's like being around Cassidy and the straight guy and what is _up_ with that anyway?"

Too much information to process at the same time. "We were meant to be meeting up tonight?"

"Well, duh." Brad rolled his eyes, stretched up onto his toes and rapped his knuckles sharply on Adam's forehead. "Anyone home? Who are you and what did you do with Adam?"

Adam swatted Brad's hand away - without too much force - and pushed his hands through his hair, getting his fingers wet. "I was working on a song," he repeated. "What?"

"Your roots need redoing," Brad told him. "Go find your glasses and come downstairs."

Tempting as it was just to crawl into bed and shut the door on his friends, the song, and the world, Adam sighed, kissed Brad's cheek, and went to find his glasses. And, because of exactly who the guys waiting downstairs were, a light coat of tinted moisturizer to cover the worst of his skin problems, and a touch of wax through his hair to tame it into something approaching a style that would disguise his ginger roots as much as possible.

He followed the smell of coffee to his kitchen and immediately held both hands out, wiggling his fingers in supplication. "Gimme."

"Oh, honey, I never knew you still cared." Brad promptly inserted himself between Adam's arms and wound around him, rubbing slightly.

Adam flipped the finger at Cassidy and Tommy's laughter, hugged Brad warmly, then pried him off. "Caffeine, bitches," he demanded.

"You have fuck all real food in here," Tommy complained and passed him a mug of coffee. "Don't you ever _eat?_"

"Says the skinniest fucker in the room." Brad rolled his eyes, and hopped back up onto one of Adam's kitchen stools, giving him enough time to wrap both hands around the mug and inhale a long, sweet breath of the fabulous fragrance of fresh coffee. "Back the fuck off, this is a crisis. Princess here _forgot_ we were meeting up."

"Didn't know," Adam protested. He still hadn't even taken a sip of the coffee, but just holding it was helping. "Who even planned it?"

Cassidy placed Adam's phone on the counter and slid it across to him. "When did you last turn that on?"

Oh. Right. Shit. "Sometime early Friday evening?" Probably. About then. He'd turned it off when Kris left and purposely hadn't turned it on again. It would only have interrupted his concentration.

"Crisis," Brad sang out, disapproving. "Pick up your messages."

That was exactly what Adam didn't want to do. He sighed, took the first, life-giving sip of caffeine, and turned his phone on. Tapping in the code to unlock it, he left it on the counter to finish the start-up thing that always seemed to take forever. "You're here now, why don't you just tell me?"

"Why don't you just play us what you've been working on?" Cassidy suggested quietly, one eyebrow lifting as he looked across the counter at Adam.

"Because nothing's ready enough to play to anyone yet." Not to Kris, definitely not to his friends, even more definitely not when those friends included someone who was in his band. "That's why I'm still _working_ on it."

Cassidy nodded as though he wasn't surprised, and let Tommy slip away from his side. "How very Aries of you."

Yeah. Maybe. "I just need to break this. It's so close to actually being something really good." If he could just find the right structure, the right shape for it, the right soundscape. "Really amazingly good. Something _new_."

"Hello, working on it for thirty six hours?" Brad waved a hand in front of his face. "Step away from the studio, honey. Got to have a life to write about it. And who's the one who told me to take a break last time I nearly threw my laptop out of the window because of that moronic video editing program?"

"That was different." Adam wasn't getting frustrated. Not with software or instruments, anyway, just with himself and he couldn't _find_ the right sound, he needed to keep working on... Oh, fuck, he knew that sound. The faint sound of a guitar being tuned, a familiar melody shape and the realization that he hadn't locked the studio. "Tommy!"

Cassidy caught his arm before he managed to knock his own coffee over, and held him back from launching into a run to the studio that would probably have resulted in him falling over something along the way. "He'll be playing it eventually, right?"

Right, yeah, that was the idea. Perform it, play it with his band, but it wasn't ready for that yet. Adam wasn't ready for that yet, to share what wasn't fully formed. "Now isn't eventually. I mean, not yet."

"This is what you've been working on?" Brad looked at him sharply, dark eyes bright and interested. "This is what's kept you out of the club? We so need to hear this."

"You'll hear it when I've _got_ something!" Shit, didn't they get it? It wasn't a song yet, it was just a collection of ideas and scraps that wouldn't go together.

"That sounded like something." Cassidy took the coffee away from Adam, put the phone in his hand instead, and urged him to his feet. "We're going to hear it some time, Adam. You'd rather be there when it happens than have me sitting on you while Tommy plays it to Brad, right?"

If those were the only possible choices. "I guess." He sounded sulky even to himself, and slid his phone into his pocket, messages still unchecked.

"Good choice." Brad bounced up, grinned, and took Adam's other arm. "You can sing it for us."

"But I'm not gonna," Adam said firmly. He was walking, yeah, he was going to the studio, but he wasn't going to sing for them. "There isn't an it to sing!"

Some lyrics. Some phrases, some melody, some of it even put together, but not a whole verse, no chorus, no middle eight, not even a hook. Still just the building blocks of a song, without even solid foundations to build it on. Tommy had found some of the scraps, but not even all of them and, for a moment, Adam felt guilty for feeling relieved at that.

Cassidy pushed him down into his desk chair. Brad dropped onto his lap, cutting off his chance of escape. Adam sighed and looked over at Tommy. "You've seen it, right? It's nothing."

"It's something." Tommy pushed his hair back from his face and looked steadily at Adam. Under the harsher lights of the studio, his face was clearer, remnants of lipgloss still visible, eyeliner smudged. "This is what you're writing with Kris Allen?"

It sounded like there was more to the question than the words implied, but Adam was too tired to try to read any deeper, even with Tommy. "Yeah. There's some other stuff around that's just mine, but what you were playing, that's what I've been working on. What we've been writing."

Tommy nodded, and shifted position, hooking one foot on the bar of the stool to prop the acoustic guitar into place, no strap to hold it safe. "And you haven't done much new since he left Friday, right?"

"Oh, just fucking play it." Brad wriggled on Adam's lap, forcing Adam to hold onto him so he didn't either fall off or get too close to starting something Adam was pretty sure he didn't want to finish.

A single chord, then Tommy paused, looked at Adam, then at Cassidy. "No. He's right, it's not ready."

"But I wanna _hear_ it," Brad whined, braced himself against one arm of the chair and the edge of Adam's old desk (sturdier than it looked, thank God), and slid to his feet. "Play it, bitch."

"Brad," Cassidy said quietly. "Let it go."

Adam didn't have a clue what was going on, but if it meant the song not getting played or sung, he was all in favor. From the look on his face, Brad had more of an idea than he did, but less than Tommy and Cassidy seemed to. "When did you guys start doing the secret couple language thing?"

Tommy actually blushed. Cassidy laughed, went over to kiss him, and took the guitar, bracing it against Tommy's shoulder as he checked the tuning. "You'll figure it out," he said, grinned, and started playing one of his old songs that Adam recognized from years before he'd even cut his first album.

Surrounded by friends, with the pressure removed or at least delayed and with familiar music surrounding him, Adam tugged Brad back onto his lap, rested his head against Brad's back and drifted until someone noticed, the music stopped, and at least one of his friends guided Adam upstairs to bed.

~~~

Adam wasn't certain what had woken him the next morning, but he woke very abruptly and definitely to sunshine streaming across the room. Cassidy was sprawled on the bed next to him and Tommy was curled half on top of Cassidy. Adam blinked a couple of times, found the glasses someone had left on his nightstand, then looked down to find Brad on the rug next to the side of the bed. Presumably he'd fallen off at some point during the night.

The temptation to step on him was strong. Adam manfully resisted.

When the doorbell sounded again, Adam placed that as the reason for waking up, and sighed. That meant getting up. And he owed Traci anyway, since she hadn't killed him, set anyone on him, or tracked him down for having his phone turned off for two days. Again.

A hand closed around his ankle, and Adam yelped before he could stop himself, laughing down to see Brad looking up at him through slitted eyes.

"Bitch, did you kick me out again?" Brad demanded, sitting up gingerly. "Oh, fuck, tell me you have Tylenol some place in this mansion."

"Fuck the Tylenol, gimme coffee."

Adam looked back to see Tommy lifting his head from Cassidy's chest, and apparently he was the only one who managed to get his make-up off last night because Tommy had kohl smeared halfway down one cheek (and probably on Cassidy's chest as well). "Oh, like I invited you."

The doorbell sounded again, and Adam sighed, found a way to get out of bed without stepping on Brad and headed for the door. "Y'all know where the bathroom is, whatever, I'mma be downstairs." Wishing he'd had time to pee first, but, whatever, doorbell, and he owed Traci that at least. Answering the door to her. Flowers. Candy. A spa day. A vacation. "I'm _coming!_"

Ignoring the muttered comments from behind him about who was or wasn't coming, and trying not to wonder if Cassidy was actually unconscious if he'd managed to sleep through that, Adam took the stairs two at a time and skidded barefoot to a halt just in time to open the door, apologies ready on his lips. "Fuck, I'm sorry, I was working on... _Kris?_"

Because unless Traci had given up her heels, started wearing plaid and begun carrying a guitar case, that was definitely not her back.

Kris turned, looking back over his shoulder, and his eyes widened. "I can, uh, come back..."

That was when Adam's brain caught up to the fact that he was only wearing his jeans, which he must have ended up sleeping in. No shirt, no shoes, fuck knew what his hair looked like, his glasses and most significantly, no make-up.

Shit.

"No, I... come in. I thought you were Traci," he explained lamely, standing back. "Though I should probably, uh... yeah." Shirt, at least, he could do that pretty quickly. "Can I get you some coffee or something?"

"I brought lunch, actually." Kris held up a brown paper bag that looked like it came from one of the chain take-out places, and Adam did his best not to wince. "I mean, I said I'd call if I had something, but I couldn't get hold of you, so I thought maybe...well, you're kind of on my way back from church, so..."

Church. Oh, fuck, there was a ridiculous purity about Kris, but church? Adam blinked, shook his head, and moved further back. "I'm pretty sure I've got food in my kitchen. Come on in, I'll get a shirt. The kitchen's right through there, I'll just be a moment." He waved towards the kitchen and went in search of a t-shirt and his contact lenses, unable to stop the contemplation of what kinds of sins Kris Allen might tell to a confessor that would drag him out of bed before noon on a Sunday.

Really not time to be thinking about Kris on his knees.

Adam took the stairs two at a time, grabbing the first t-shirt he could find when his bedroom turned out to be empty. Empty bedroom meant either the guys had started an orgy in his bathroom (not impossible, and it wouldn't have been the first time) or they were wandering around downstairs, zombie-like, except seeking coffee instead of brains.

Downstairs, where Kris was. It was possibly the first time that Adam hoped there was an orgy going on in his house without him being part of it.

No such luck. The sound of voices coming from the kitchen led him to discover Tommy already making coffee (okay, Tommy totally got brownie points for that) and talking to Kris, who seemed to have gotten past blushing whenever Tommy was around. When Adam caught part of the conversation, it was pretty easy to work out why.

"So you..." Tommy twisted his hand, fingers splayed, and it took Adam a moment to figure out that he was trying to mime chord fingering without actually having a guitar in his hands.

Unless it was actually just invisible to Adam, because apparently Kris could see it perfectly well. "That's the sustained six," he said, reaching out to move one of Tommy's fingers. "You wanna..."

"Oh, I got it!" Tommy moved his finger, and grinned at Kris through his hair, messy from overnight and being nowhere near a comb since well before he'd left the club.

Adam pushed away a stab of something that couldn't possibly be jealousy but could have been hunger or caffeine craving, and moved into the kitchen. "Is this a musicians only conversation or do singers get to join in as well?"

Kris paused, his hand still over Tommy's, and looked up at Adam, confused, before hurriedly dropping his hand back to his side. "We were just talking about fingering, it's..." The blush was back as well.

The invisible guitar disappeared as Tommy went back to coffee making after giving Adam the singers-are-musicians-too look that he'd seen way too many times on tour. "Adam knows _all_ about fingering," he drawled, and Kris blushed deeper.

Really not jealousy. "Looks like you two were doing just fine without me." He tugged one of the kitchen stools out, and leaned against it. "How long until coffee and where did the others end up?"

"Others?" Kris asked, eyes widening. "Did I interrupt... I can come back another time, really, I just...."

Fuck, so very tempting. Adam relented. "Relax, honey, you didn't end up in a den of iniquity, no need to run back to church yet. Tommy, babe, coffee _please?_"

"Two minutes," Tommy promised. "Brad's in the bathroom, Cassidy's..."

"Right here," Cassidy said from behind Adam. He was also shirtless, also shoeless, pants riding low on his hips as he strolled into the kitchen and over to Tommy, sliding one hand into his hair. Tommy made a soft sound, closed his eyes, and arched back against Cassidy.

It was kind of gorgeous, but if Kris opened his eyes any wider, his eyeballs would fall out, and besides, the porn-kiss happening in Adam's kitchen was delaying his communion with coffee. "Time the fuck out, guys, Tommy's making coffee!"

Cassidy broke the kiss without any apparent urgency, trailed his fingers across Tommy's cheek and stayed behind him, linking his arms loosely around Tommy's waist. "Brad's not gonna want any for a while. I think he crashed out again. On the bed, this time."

Okay, well, that would lower the likelihood of Brad bitching about his back when he woke up, anyway. Adam nodded, saw the mug extended in his direction and reached out eagerly. "_Thank_ you." Sweet, sweet caffeine, and maybe he was being a lousy host, but he'd be a worse one if he didn't get coffee immediately. "Kris, you remember Cassidy?"

"The face, sure." Kris held his hand out towards Cassidy. "I don't think I got your name before, man, good to meet you."

Adam had to admit, Kris put on a pretty good show of proper manners while also looking confused as fuck. Cassidy merely let go of Tommy with the appropriate hand, and shook Kris' hand. "Pleasure's mine, Kris. You're the guy Adam's been keeping to himself all week?"

"Not exactly," Kris said slowly, looked at Cassidy, then at Tommy, then back at Cassidy again. "Are you guys...?"

"Yeah." Cassidy smiled, kissed the back of Tommy's neck, and didn't elaborate. "I've known Adam since he was a redhead."

Adam hid behind his coffee, and wished he'd had time to put at least some base on before answering the door. Fucking freckles always gave him away. "Thanks," he said dryly. "Wanna give him the full history?"

"I think he's got most of it." Cassidy finally let go of Tommy, and nodded at Adam. "You should tell him the rest."

Oh, he was so not awake enough for Cassidy's riddles. "What rest?"

Tommy pushed another mug of coffee at Kris, took one for himself, and went back to wrap himself around Cassidy. "He means tell Kris you're not fucking me," he said bluntly. "C'mon, babe, I wanna make the most of Adam's shower."

Right. That. Which hadn't even crossed his mind that Kris might think, though now it had, and now he was hoping that maybe it might matter. To Kris, who was looking straight at him with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Shower," Cassidy agreed, laughed low and dark, and let Tommy tug him out of the room, leaving them alone.

Adam took another sip of coffee, and made himself look right back at Kris. "So, I guess you've got something on the song." It wasn't what he wanted to say, by a long way, but hey, the guy had pretty much come out and said he didn't even want to be spending time with Adam while they were working together, which wasn't exactly encouragement for anything more.

"Something, yeah." Kris took a couple of steps towards him, and hopped up onto another stool. Not quite next to him, but closer. "Tommy said you've been working on it, too. You mind if I eat? Breakfast was so long ago my stomach's forgotten I ate anything."

"Sure, go ahead." It wasn't Adam's job to police Kris' diet, and the man looked good enough to eat already and fuck, he needed to stop having thoughts like that. "I didn't get much further on the song, though. Did you call or something? I turn my phone off when I'm working."

Okay, so sometimes he turned his phone off when he was working. Not usually when he was alone and working, but that was a different thing entirely and he so wasn't telling Kris why he'd really switched his phone off because he wasn't that pathetic, thanks. Except when he was, but Kris didn't need to know about that. No fucking with the straight boys.

Kris unwrapped something that looked like a carb and fat overload, which probably tasted amazing but would have had Adam hitting the gym in a fit of guilt within the hour. "I called, yeah," Kris said easily. "You wanna check your messages while I eat so I don't have to repeat myself?"

Adam blinked, and arched an eyebrow at that. "You mean you can't remember what you said?" He pulled his phone out anyway, already on from the night before and happily telling him about all the texts and voicemail messages he hadn't picked up.

"I mean I'm hungry, man." Kris gave him a grin so warm and sweet Adam's heart actually turned over in his chest before he could tell it to behave.

He took a deep breath, told his physical reactions to stop being so clichéd, and found a grin to offer in return. "So, eat." He tapped the screen, and checked through the text messages first. The expected ones from Brad and Cassidy and Tommy, a picture message from Monte of his twins blowing out candles on a birthday cake and fuck, he'd need to send amazing presents to make up for missing that. A couple from Traci reminding him that his week of seclusion was coming to an end and she needed him to confirm which interviews he'd do so she could coordinate with Lane. One from Neil, one from his dad, and one from his mom pointing out that it would be nice to _see_ him now he was back in LA.

Nothing really unexpected, and nothing from Kris. Adam took another gulp of his coffee, considered breakfast, and dialed his voicemail, leaning one elbow against the counter as he listened.

"You have three new messages. First message, left Saturday, ten seventeen a.m. Hey, Adam, it's, uh, Kris, you said to call if I had something? Anyway, yeah, let me know when you get this. End of message. To save, press three. To delete, press seven. For next message, press..."

Adam rolled his eyes and went straight to the next message. "Hey, bitch, where the fuck are you? It's... Fuck knows, it's a good time to be out with us, princess, so move your fabulous ass and get down here, you know where we are!"

He pressed seven, and went on to the next. "So, I guess you didn't get my first message or something, I'm, uh... look, I need to talk to you about the song, okay? I think I figured something out, but I'm going to church right now. If I haven't heard back from you, I'm gonna stop by on my way back, make sure you're okay. Oh, it's Kris."

Adam saved the message, ended the call, and arched an eyebrow at Kris. "That's not really a lot of information, honey."

Kris grinned at him, unrepentant. "Sure, but I wanted you to have the full background. Up to speed now?"

"Pretty much that you wanna talk to me about the song and you've been to church." Which he could probably have worked out from the fact that Kris was at his house and had said he'd been to church. "I'm okay, I'm not dead, and for the record, the guys came over at oh-god-o'clock this morning to check on that, too."

"The guys who you're not..." Kris paused, and took another bite of his sandwich instead of dropping the f-bomb. Which really shouldn't have been quite so intriguing. "Not your boyfriend."

Heart-eyes probably weren't the appropriate reaction to that, so Adam did his best to rein them in. "Not my boyfriend," he agreed. "Tommy and Cass have a thing, Brad's... probably getting into the most meaningful relationship he's had in three years right now."

Kris blinked, balled up the paper from his lunch, and licked his fingers in a way that on anyone else currently in Adam's house wouldn't have seemed anywhere near as innocent. "There's someone else here?"

"Just Brad and my power shower." Adam smirked, the caffeine finally working its way into his system enough to take effect. "Don't ask. So, you wanted to talk about the song?"

On reflection, making Kris blush probably shouldn't be something he wanted to turn into his new hobby, but it was really fucking pretty.

"Remind me never to take a shower here," Kris said, his voice slightly rough, then cleared his throat and swallowed. "Okay, right, yeah. Tommy said you've been working on the song this weekend?"

They really needed to decide on a working title for it, Adam reflected. Unless he could actually release it as 'Song for Kris', and he needed to get the image of Kris in the shower out of his head. "Trying, yeah, I haven't really... I can't get anywhere."

Kris nodded. "I can't, either. I have a theory, because your style's kinda really not like the sort of stuff I usually write, but this song's not exactly your usual either, right?"

It would sound more like it once Adam had worked on an arrangement with Monte and the band and it had gone through post-production, but okay, yeah, Kris already knew that and he was still right. "I like to mix things up a bit."

"But not usually like this." That one didn't actually sound like a question.

"Yeah, okay, not like this," he admitted, and finished his coffee. "But I'm flexible! I can do this!" Despite all the evidence from the weekend that said he couldn't.

"I can't," Kris said bluntly, and Adam bit his tongue. "I mean, I can't on my own. I think we're working better on it together, that's what I wanted to say."

Maybe miracles did happen. Kris Allen in his kitchen, saying that he _wanted_ to work with Adam? It had to be a dream. Except Adam was pretty sure he wouldn't dream about Cassidy and Tommy making out over making coffee, or the distant sounds of Brad singing in the shower interspersed with cheerful cursing, so it had to be real. Kris had come over to his house to say he wanted them to work together and maybe it was just because that way they'd get the song finished earlier and Kris could go back to his music but maybe, just maybe, it wasn't that. Maybe Kris really was enjoying working with him and maybe Adam's imagination was running away with him, because it was already several steps ahead and thinking about the other things Kris might enjoy doing with him. "Well, I guess we can test that theory. You wanna try working on it this afternoon?"

"You mean..." Kris paused. "But you've got company."

"Company invited themselves, they can take care of themselves." Adam stood up, leaving his empty coffee mug behind, and held his hand out to Kris, wiggling his fingers in invitation. "C'mon. You play piano too, right?"

Kris looked at Adam's hand until Adam realized what he was doing. Shit, having the guys around his house when he woke up had him falling back into patterns of casual touch again, and no matter what he thought about Kris or however comfortable they'd gotten around each other over the last week, it didn't mean Kris would be okay with that.

He dropped his hand and shoved it into his pocket instead, tilting his head in the direction of the studio. "I've got a piano."

"I know," Kris said, with an expression Adam couldn't quite read. "I've seen it. Okay, if you're sure, why not?"

Less sure than he had been but fuck it, he still wanted the song, and even if he was more reluctant to admit it to himself, he wanted time with Kris as well. "I'm more of a reasons why than a reasons why not kind of guy," he confided. "C'mon, honey, let's make beautiful music together."

Kris laughed and tucked his hand into Adam's arm. "Does that line ever actually work?"

"I'm hoping," Adam said under his breath, startled but definitely liking the feel of Kris holding onto him, and led the way to the studio.

~~~

Maybe the line didn't work, but the music definitely did. Phrases Adam had struggled over dropped seamlessly into place, linking together into longer sections. Maybe it was still kind of skeletal, but it was still the progress he'd failed to make for two days.

"So if we shift..." Adam swiveled around in his chair, abandoning the computer to flip through notes again. "Here. This one."

Kris peered at the notebook and nodded. Away from the guitar, he seemed less certain, somehow smaller, and Adam had to resist the urge to hug him and reassure him that he was good on the piano, too. More than good, but Kris didn't need reassurance. Probably. He had to know how good he was, right?

Kris moved his hands, fingers changing to shape over the chords, looking down to watch what he was doing. "Into the same key, yeah?"

"For a start, yeah." Fuck, Adam had to stop watching Kris' fingers. They weren't as tempting on the piano as on the guitar, probably because the piano didn't have any kind of phallic neck for Kris to fondle, but they were still kind of hypnotic and the skill was definitely hot. "We should start getting some lyrics with this."

"Yours or mine?" Kris glanced up from the keyboard, lips curved in a lopsided grin. "I know you've got some stuff already written so you've got a theme, right?"

Adam's lyrics always had a theme. Usually seduction, or celebration of love, or mourning lost love, or frustration of love denied, or... okay, he wrote about love. It was what he knew, and people responded to it because they could relate to it, live the songs when he sang them. This one, though, was turning uncomfortably personal. "Yeah, I've got a theme, sort of."

"So?" Kris looked at him expectantly. "Show me what you've got."

Except what he'd got, and what he had as a theme, was kind of, well, Kris. "It's kind of about when you've got a thing for someone and they don't have a clue, I guess."

Kris nodded. "And...?"

"And it's not finished yet, it's just a few phrases." He flipped through the notebook again, back a few pages to words he didn't really need to look up. Maybe he didn't have much yet, but the words he did have were firmly fixed in his memory.

"And the music was just a few phrases until a couple hours ago," Kris pointed out. He turned back to the piano, and after a couple of false starts that Adam put down to moving familiar chords from guitar to keyboard, found the first section they'd put together. That flowed straight into the new one. Kris nodded to himself, tilted his head as if listening more closely, and ran it through again, more confidently. "Anything fit?"

Oh, he so wasn't singing sitting down. Adam stood up and padded across to stand behind Kris, wondering if it made him some kind of masochist to want to get closer even when he wasn't going to get to touch. Whatever, watching over Kris' shoulder, he could at least see where the chords changed. "Some, I think... can you run that through again, please?"

"Sure, as much as you need, man," Kris said easily, finished the section, and started again.

There was always something about the first time words and music came together that Adam absolutely loved. There was something magical about it, when the meaning of language and the language of melody and harmony fused and everything enhanced everything else. He watched and listened to the whole section once more, hummed softly to find a melody line the second time, and the third time turned into Adam singing under his breath. "When I look at you and you look at me, babe, it's clear to me you don't see what I see..."

Light and quiet, the lyrics he already had flowed to new ones, repeated and found ways to fit with the harmony. After the frustrations of the past weekend, it was like freedom; like flying for the first time, trusting the wings of the new song and letting them take him into flight. Effort and mental blocks crumbled, going from painfully slow progress into organic improvisation, and Kris went _with_ him. Adam could almost feel Kris relaxing as he grew more confident in the music. Maybe it wasn't perfect, maybe they found dissonance a few times, but it didn't matter. Every dissonance was resolved, every one moved on to find a new chord, words fitting where they could and just turning his voice into another instrument when they didn't, elated and happy, so giddy with it that when the music finally stopped, there was only one way the emotion could escape and be expressed. It wasn't in words, it wasn't in his trademark wail, it wasn't dark enough for a scream, it wasn't pure enough for a high note. It was simple, clear, joyful laughter, spilling out into the room and shared between them when Kris looked up at him, dark eyes bright.

What Adam _wasn't_ expecting was the way Kris twisted around on the piano stool and hugged him.

No hesitation at all, no holding back, firm and warm, arms around his waist and Kris' face buried in Adam's chest. Fuck, he'd thought taking Kris' _hand_ was life-changing, being hugged by Kris was just so much more. Heat rushed through him, and Adam tried, no, really tried, to tell his cock to behave. It was a hug, it was a gesture of friendship or something like it, it was just the euphoria of finally making progress on the song and Adam's cock wasn't listening to any of his desperate rationalization. And Kris still wasn't pulling away.

Adam gave in, and did what he wanted to do. At least, some of it. He hugged Kris back, arms tight around Kris' shoulders, and dipped his head enough to rub his cheek against Kris' hair. "We've _got_ to get some of this shit down."

Kris lifted his head just far enough to look up at Adam and oh, fuck, if that wasn't temptation personified. Kris' hair was mussed, his face was flushed, his eyes were shining, and Adam wanted nothing more in the world than to kiss him absolutely senseless. For a start. Okay, maybe almost nothing more, because what he mostly wanted was not to break the trust and the rapport they'd somehow found, and he was pretty sure that kissing Kris would do that.

Even though Kris wasn't even trying to pull away when he had to be able to feel Adam's hard-on pressed against him. Maybe Kris was putting that down to the music as well.

"Oh, I'm sorry," drawled a familiar voice from the doorway, not sounding at all sorry. "Am I _interrupting_ some important process of creation?"

Brad. Adam closed his eyes, and let go when he felt Kris starting to pull away. "Did my shower dump you or something?"

"Your shower and I have an understanding," Brad said dismissively, pushing past Adam to hold his hand out to Kris. "Hi, you probably remember me."

Earthquakes, forest fires, walking in on his ex hugging a straight guy - no natural disaster would _ever_ stop Brad from being Brad. Sometimes Adam was even thankful for that. "Brad, Kris," he introduced. "Kris, Brad. We're _working_ here, honey."

"Well, _you_ were." Brad shook Kris' unresisting hand and ignored Kris' expression. The one Adam couldn't interpret as either bemusement or amusement. Maybe it was both. "Nice progress."

"You were listening?" Kris drew his hand back and folded his arms. "I could, uh, come back another time. I mean, I know it's your weekend and all..."

Fuck, Adam really, really didn't want Kris to go. He didn't exactly want to kick Brad out either, though, because he kinda owed some time to his friends as well, but he - they - were finally making progress on the song, getting some _real_ music. "I really wanna get some of the song down. Written, recorded..."

"Don't mind me." Brad waved a hand in a dismissive gesture and sat down in Adam's chair, knees primly together and his hands folded in his lap, the perfect picture of Victorian propriety. If he'd been a Victorian schoolgirl, anyway, and Victorian schoolgirls had worn skintight clothing. "You won't even know that I'm here."

"You know why?" Wheels on a chair came in really useful sometimes. Adam took firm hold of the back of the chair and wheeled Brad back outside the studio. "Because you won't _be_ here. Just... a couple hours. I'll go with you to Fubar tonight."

He hated Fubar. Especially on a Sunday. Brad either loved it, or loved making Adam work by going to a place he hated.

Brad moved his hands from his lap and gripped the arms of the chair. "Promise? You promise, right?" He leaned over and looked around Adam to where Kris was presumably behind him. "You heard that, you _witnessed_, I'm gonna hold you responsible for getting his ass out of the studio and into the club tonight."

"Or you could trust him," Kris suggested.

Adam looked back over his shoulder, letting go of the chair and seeing Kris was closer than he'd expected. A lot closer, actually: Kris was outside the studio with his shoulders hunched and both hands in his pockets. "Look, I'm sorry, we'll pick up in a couple minutes, yeah?"

Brad ignored him. "Trust the guy who didn't turn up to meet us yesterday or Friday?"

"The guy who didn't have his phone on," Kris said steadily. "You know he's got the message this time, you've got his word. He'll be there."

"If he's not, I'mma blame _you_," Brad said, bounced out of the chair and kissed Adam's cheek. "Have fun, honey. Tell Ben I'm picking you up tonight."

Adam stared after Brad as he went, trying to work out what had just happened, until Kris' touch on his arm brought his attention back. "I... Shit, I'm sorry about that."

Kris shook his head and firmed his grip on Adam's forearm. "Are you okay?"

Of all the things Adam might have expected to hear from Kris, that definitely wasn't one of them. He glanced down at Kris' hand on his arm, then back at Kris' face. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, Brad's just, well, he's Brad. He means well."

"He's your friend?"

Okay, so maybe Adam had to admit some of that hadn't sounded very friendly. "One of the best."

Kris shrugged, and let go of Adam's arm. "Only he's kinda acting like Cale's ex did last time we tried to get a band together to record some stuff." He turned and headed back into the studio.

Adam stared at Kris's back and added that scrap of information to the 'possible reasons why Kris took a vow' list. As far as Brad being jealous of the time he spent on music went, he was pretty sure that didn't happen any more. But if Brad was getting jealous of the time he spent with _Kris_...

It had just been a hug. Right?

~~~

Fubar really wasn't Adam's kind of place. Sure, the go-go dancers were kinda cute, but there was no VIP lounge and that, combined with the crowds made his security unhappy. Unhappy security meant Adam couldn't dance, which left him stuck near the bar watching Brad being Cheeks all over the dance floor, with a bodyguard on either side of him so he couldn't even flirt.

Lane had refused to let him hire bodyguards based on their flirtation talents.

He sighed, ordered another pink martini, and sent another text message to Kris. `just so you know, i hate you a little for not giving me an excuse to not be here`

The music in his head had nothing to do with the heavy bass vibrating through his boots, and everything to do with Kris. He flipped the file open on his phone, stared at the lyrics on his screen, and tapped a few more words out.

"You," Brad said breathlessly, "are dull as fuck these days." He stole Adam's drink, took a sip, and wrinkled his nose. "Not that fucking's dull unless you're you because _how_ long's it been since you got laid? Hanging out with straight boys and spending time on your _phone_ when I finally get you out isn't gonna get your dick sucked, sugar."

"You never complained about me fucking _you_," Adam countered. He stole his drink back again, and nodded to the girl behind the bar for another one. "You know I hate this place."

"Because you're _dull_," Brad repeated. "It's fun! And it has the best back room in town on a Sunday night."

For a moment, Adam let himself imagine going through to the back room with his bodyguards in tow. Seriously not the most lustworthy image ever. "If you wanna go through the back, honey, don't let me stop you, but you're gonna be going alone."

"Oh, I'm so not." Brad hopped up onto a barstool, elbowing a bodyguard aside without looking, and kissed Adam's cheek. "The guy with the red hair? Totally checking me out."

Adam looked. Tall, whipcord-thin, shirtless and he'd given up trying to predict Brad's type the day they broke up. "It's dyed," he said briefly.

Brad rolled his eyes. "So? Yours is too."

"He doesn't have freckles, so it's dyed." Adam sipped his drink and looked again, catching a very inviting look from Mr. Fake Redhead. He wasn't even tempted to try and follow up on it, even though those green eyes were kind of amazing. Probably contacts, though, because if the hair was fake, the rest probably was too.  
"And you do have freckles and yours is dyed, what's the big deal?" Brad reached across and stole Adam's phone. "Oh, for... Lyrics? Seriously? I draaaaag you out, parade you in front of some of the prettiest guys in town, and you're standing here writing song lyrics about how you're pining for the straight guy again?"

He wasn't _pining_. Or...oh, shit, he _was_ pining. Because he couldn't stop thinking about Kris, and the song, but the song kind of _was_ Kris, and it was Kris he wanted here with him, not the song. Kris with his completely natural hair and un-fake eyes. Kris who couldn't get more genuine if he tried. Kris who'd probably never walk through the door of Fubar in a million years.

Kris who was walking through the door of Fubar _right now_.

"Who said he's straight?" Adam retorted, more to shut Brad up than because he seriously doubted Kris' sexuality, and pushed away from the bar to head towards Kris before the hordes descended. Plaid shirt or not, the white t-shirt under it was tight enough to show that the body underneath it was very nice indeed, and Adam entirely blamed being at Fubar for letting himself notice that when he'd managed not to notice it all week.

Bodyguards flanking him (because he'd had too many lectures from Lane after the few nights he'd been out and managed to lose them), he headed straight for Kris and tried not to show that his entire body warmed when Kris looked absolutely delighted when he saw Adam . Strange place, familiar face, that was all it was. Right.

"Adam!" Kris said happily and made a beeline for him. He'd come alone, which was something Adam was apparently going to have to talk to him about unless Kris _wanted_ to get devoured by the wolves, and he'd pretty obviously changed clothes before coming out. Changed clothes, showered, styled his hair and shaved. Kris was close enough that Adam could smell that he was wearing a different aftershave before Andrew stepped between them and stopped Kris with a heavy hand to his shoulder.

A seriously nice different aftershave.

Adam moved forwards before Marshall could get in on the cockblocking action as well. "It's cool, back off, he's someone I'm working with. Kris, what the _fuck?_"

Kris' smile faltered slightly. "Well, Brad said he was holding me responsible, so I figured I could come and make sure you were here, I mean, I don't wanna give him a reason to go for me."

Brad wasn't the only one Kris needed to be worried about at Fubar, but Adam kept that one to himself. "What about your vow? The whole no girls, no partying thing?"

"I didn't think there'd be any," Kris admitted, looking around with what appeared to be a lot of interest and a complete lack of caution. "I mean, if it's a place Brad likes..."

It was a fair assumption, Adam had to agree, but not a correct one. "It's a mixed place, not a gay bar, but still, partying..."

"I'm not here to party," Kris said stubbornly. "I came to see you."

"So I don't get to buy you a drink or ask you to dance?" Adam realized with a start that he was actually flirting with Kris. Just he would with any other cute guy in the club, apart from the fact that he hadn't been interested in even trying to flirt with any other cute guy in the club.

Just this one.

Kris bit his lip, fullness flushing darker under his teeth, and he looked back up at Adam. "I guess you could buy me a soda?"

"I could," Adam agreed with a grin. He held his hand out to Kris and wiggled his fingers, then stopped, remembering. Last time he'd done that, Kris had ignored his offer, but then moved in for closer contact and fuck, he really needed to give up trying to second-guess the guy and just go with the flow. "Let me guess, you're a Pepsi kinda guy?"

"Coke, actually." Kris glanced doubtfully at the bodyguards, shrugged, and took Adam's hand. "This is somewhere you come a lot?"

It sounded close enough to the cliche pick-up line that Adam had to choke back laughter, using his grip on Kris' hand to pull him in closer to his body. He could have claimed it was because of the crowded club, but maybe it was time to admit to himself that the reason he wanted Kris closer was simply that he wanted Kris closer. "A few years ago it was, yeah, now I only come here when Brad makes me."

Brad. Right, yeah, Brad who'd been right at his side and who he'd abandoned to go meet Kris. He wasn't going to hear the end of that one in a hurry either, unless... There. Over on the edge of the dancefloor. Brad had snared Mr. Fake Redhead and as far as Adam was concerned, they were welcome to each other. "C'mon, let's get you that Coke."

~~~

Three sodas later, Adam had switched from the martinis to Coke as well and was unashamedly enjoying the heat of Kris pressed up against him. Kris had claimed the barstool Brad had left earlier and scooted it over until it was as close to Adam as possible, which meant Kris' thigh rested against his own and their shoulders bumped together. It would have been easier if Adam had let himself put an arm around Kris' shoulders, but he didn't want to push further when he'd gotten so much already. Besides, he needed that hand to type on his iPhone.

"D'you really mean 'want' there?" Kris asked, pointing at the lyrics on the screen. "Or is it 'need'?"

"E's a harder sound to sing." Yeah, he meant need, but practicalities. "It closes up the throat, that one's gotta be the emphasis of the phrase. It climaxes on the 'want', not the 'you'?"

Kris wrinkled his nose. Adam didn't kiss it, despite temptation. "Yeah, but that kinda works? I mean, need's stronger, right? So you take it, you work with it, the impact comes from the word _and_ the way it thins out your voice, it adds to the emotion."

"Maybe we should try both." Not at Fubar, though, way too loud to hear anything except the throb of the bass and the music from the dance floor. Most guys didn't come to Fubar to _talk_, and definitely not to sing.

"Okay," Kris agreed, pushed his glass away and stood up.

There was no way on earth that Adam could possibly be cold in the club, but he'd swear he could feel the chill when Kris moved away from him and contact broke. "Now?"

"Why not?"

Apart from the fact that if Adam was alone with Kris anywhere at all, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to keep his hands to himself? "Well, uh..." He closed the document on his phone, and caught sight of the time. "You've got studio time with your band tomorrow, haven't you?"

Kris nodded. "Sure, but not until nine."

Adam winced. Nine. Apparently Kris had survived in the music business by being awake at insanely early hours even when he didn't have to be. "Honey, it's two now."

"Seriously?" Kris checked his watch, shook his head and laughed. "I guess that's for tomorrow, then. I should head home."

"You need a ride?" Adam heard himself ask, before he could stop the words escaping. Evidently, his subconscious was a masochist.

"I don't _need_ a ride," Kris said thoughtfully, leaning on the word, then grinned and moved in closer to stretch up and speak into Adam's ear. "But I want one."

And Kris' subconscious was a sadist. Great. Adam swallowed, resisted the call of innuendo, slid his phone into his pocket and stood up. "We'll drop you off, then."

"We?" Kris tilted his head and looked confused. "I thought..."

Adam indicated Andrew and Marshall. "Tweedledum and Tweedledee get to see me home or they have to answer to my manager. Andrew, Marshall, this is Kris, we're giving him a ride home."

Andrew nodded. Marshall didn't. Kris nodded. Adam tried to be grateful that his inner masochist would have help resisting the temptation of being trapped with Kris in a confined, private space.

He failed.

~~~

>   
> _GLAMBERT TEMPTS CHRISTIAN KRIS FROM THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS?  
> Kris Allen, recently vowed to seclusion to complete recording his first self-sung album, was seen leaving a certain West Hollywood bar late on Sunday night in the company of notorious gay glam rocker, Adam Lambert. Sources report that Allen was snuggled up close to a protective Glambert, and the pair left together in Lambert's personal car. Could this be why Allen hasn't been linked with any of LA's lovely ladies? Has Glambert seduced Allen away from the music and into his bed?_   
> 

Adam slept in on Monday morning. Not to the extent that he missed the whole morning, though he kind of wished he had when he woke up to the sound of his phone playing something he didn't recognize. He ignored the call, rolled over, and sat up. Minimal hangover, good. No memory loss of the night before, also good, though his life would probably be easier without the memory of now knowing exactly where Kris lived.

Oh, yeah, and the memory of exactly how cuddly Kris Allen had been in the back of his car on the way to Kris' place.

Kris hadn't even had the excuse of being _drunk_. Maybe he'd just been really tired?

Adam shook his head, got out of bed and went to run through his morning routine before actually picking up his phone messages. First was a text from Brad regarding Mr. Fake Redhead, who was apparently a very real blond who didn't wax enough for Brad's liking. That was followed by a voicemail from Traci demanding that he call as soon as he hauled his lazy, overpaid, overrated diva ass out of bed, one from Roger requesting pretty much the same thing in rather more careful and polite tones, and a text from Kris sent well before nine o' clock.

`had a good time last night. c u later! :*`

....Great. Now amazingly hot cute Kris that he was working with for the next however many weeks was sending him emoticon kisses. Amazingly hot cute _straight_ Kris.

Adam groaned, made coffee and flipped a coin to decide whether Traci or Roger got the first call. Heads: Roger. He leaned against the kitchen counter, listening to the familiar, comforting burbling of the coffee maker, inhaling the rich scent of imminent caffeine, and dialed. "It's Adam, Roger called?"

"Oh my _God_," squeaked an unfamiliar, breathless voice. "Okay, he's just drafting a statement, hold on, I'll put you right through..."

A _statement?_ Adam shook his head and waited for the click to tell him Roger had picked up the phone. "New assistant again?"

"Adam." Roger's voice was flat, and apparently he wasn't about to discuss his new assistant. "A little warning next time, please?"

"Warning?" Adam echoed, mystified. "Warning of what?"

"Oh, for..." There was the distant sound of typing, and a faint click. "Have you been online yet this morning?"

"I just woke up, I got your message, I called you." Which was a roundabout way of saying no that probably wasn't going to cut any ice with Roger. Adam crossed the kitchen, found a clean mug and left it by the coffee machine while he went to fetch soy milk from the fridge. "So no, I haven't. What's going on?"

Roger sighed. "Did you or did you not go to Fubar with Kris Allen last night?"

Oh, shit. He hadn't seen any paps, but he'd reached the point where he kind of tuned them out and if it had just been a gossip rat rather than a photographer, it was entirely possible that he wouldn't have noticed them. He set the milk down on the counter and set himself down on one of the kitchen stools, praying for coffee to be swift. "I went to Fubar with Brad last night, and Andrew and Marshall. Kris came all on his own."

"Right," Roger said grimly. "And left with you?"

"Well, yeah, I wasn't gonna leave him to the guys in there, they'd have eaten him alive!" Both literally and figuratively speaking.

"Adam." There was a pause, one that Adam knew well enough that he could almost hear the sound of Roger pinching the bridge of his nose and attempting to remain calm. "I'm going to ask this once, and I need absolute honesty. What is going on between you and Kris Allen?"

That, Adam felt, was a little unfair, considering that he'd never been anything _but_ absolutely honest with Roger. "We're writing a song together," he said simply. "We've been working on it here, that's all."

"Kris Allen's been to your house? How often?"

Oh, shit, Kris. Never mind Traci, or Lane, he needed to check on Kris. "Every day Tuesday to Friday last week, and he showed up here on Sunday afternoon. Yesterday afternoon. I sent a car for him on Tuesday, after that he drove himself, Ben's got all the details of when he arrived and when he left."

"And you didn't think that I'd need to know this?" Roger asked sharply. "You're not new to this business any more. If someone new starts visiting your house regularly, we need to know about it."

Adam took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly as the coffee maker burbled into quietness. "We're working together. Kris is contracted to write my next single. You already knew that. I didn't expect him to show up at the club, we're not dating, we're not even friends." Though he hated hearing himself say that out loud.

Roger made an unconvinced sound. "We did _not_ know that you were working on it last week, with him at your house. Are you expecting him there today?"

"Yeah." It was Monday, and there was Kris' text as well. "Yeah, he should be here around four thirty?"

"Don't count on it," Roger said darkly. "I'll talk to Kris Allen's PR. Stay where you are, do _not_ go out without checking with me or Traci and for the love of God, stay away from Twitter."

He ended the call and Adam was left staring at a silent phone, cursing that Roger had remembered to issue that edict this time. If something was going on, if something was being said... Shit, it meant he couldn't defend himself. And okay, he paid Roger to take care of his public image, but that didn't stop him from wanting to be able to speak for himself.

Coffee. Coffee would help. He left his phone on the counter, ignoring the chirps announcing new messages and poured his coffee, adding soy milk before going over to start up his laptop. It wasn't like he went as far as Brad or Cassidy, he didn't get Google alerts for any mention of his name, but he liked to keep up with what was being said on the gossip sites. Between JustJared, TMZ, and a hate/love/hate relationship with Perez, he usually had a pretty decent idea of the media's opinion of him at any given time. Not so much of his music, since the media seemed far more interested in the fact that he was a) gay b) pretty and c) single.

TMZ gave him everything he needed to know, and no answers. Adam stared at the screen, mentally cursed 'sources' who persisted on believing he was some kind of predator and apparently thought Kris was a helpless victim, and drank his coffee. His fingers itched to get onto Twitter and set the record straight, except he couldn't do that without talking to Kris first and he wanted to talk to Kris more than he wanted to do pretty much anything else.

Leaving the laptop humming to itself, he went to retrieve his phone and called Kris' number, cursing under his breath when it went straight to voicemail. Of course, Kris was in the studio. No phones. No _contact_, and he couldn't go down there without calling Roger or Traci. Neither of them were likely to give their approval to the plan, and he didn't want to make things worse. Going over to Navarre's and ran the gauntlet of however many paps were haunting the gates there would almost definitely make things worse. "Kris, it's Adam, look, I'm sorry. I don't know how much you've seen but just... Call your PR and don't go outside. And call me. Please."

Right. Shower, clothes, make-up, and something to keep busy until Kris called.

He finished his coffee, sent a text to Traci to let her know he'd been in contact with Roger and everything was being handled (if not exactly under control) and went to take a shower.

~~~

Inspiration struck midway through mascara application. All Adam needed was someone who didn't mind the publicity, who'd been to Navarre's before, and who was likely to be able to talk their way in through the gates. Brad would have been perfect, apart from the thing where Brad was probably still pissed at him for leaving Fubar without telling him, and Brad was a 'known associate' of his after the original scandal with the photos. So, Brad was off the list. Tommy wouldn't want to deal with the paps, which was a shame because if there was a better excuse for going into a studio than as a session musician, Adam couldn't think of one.

But Cassidy was perfect. He'd handle the media, he'd be able to talk his way in and the guy on the gate would recognize him from last week. He'd even be able to take a guitar if he needed one as cover. And - Adam checked his messages again - he was awake and had contacted Adam.

As had Tommy, Scarlett, Lee, Sutan, Sasha, Monte, LP, Cam, Lisa, Neil, Allison, Alisan, his parents, Brad (four times), Taylor, Brooke, Terrance and even Danielle. Adam sighed, promised himself he'd call them _all_ later, once Roger had cleared it and once he actually knew what was going on, and called Cassidy, hoping to actually speak to Cassidy this time rather than Tommy.

At least one thing was going right. "Adam?"

"Cass." Sitting down, right, sitting down was good. And necessary. "You've seen?" No point in explaining what there was to be seen. He was pretty sure he wouldn't have heard from Cassidy so early in the day if Cassidy hadn't been aware that the shit had hit the fan again.

"Yeah, we've seen. Give me a moment. You want me to put you on speaker?" There was a muffled sound which usually meant Cassidy covering the mouthpiece with his hand rather than putting him on mute.

Adam was grateful for the consideration, mostly, just impatient with it. "Not right now, I mean, Tommy's with you?"

"You're not interrupting," Cassidy said calmly, answering the unasked question. "He's gonna go take a shower. Talk to me, baby."

Adam curled up in the corner of his couch, sliding slightly on the smooth leather. "I didn't do it."

"I know you think that I'm a mind reader, but it doesn't work when I can't see your face. What didn't you do?"

Shit, he'd thought he was a better actor than to let so much show on his face that Cassidy could tell that much about what he was thinking. Maybe it had been too many years since he'd been on stage in character. Maybe Cassidy just knew him that well. Maybe Cassidy _was_ a mind reader and he was lying about it. "I didn't seduce him. I didn't even take him to the club, he just showed up!"

"Breathe," Cassidy said softly. "What's upsetting you?"

Okay, Cassidy was definitely a mind reader. Adam took in a deep breath, held it for a few seconds and let it out slowly. "Just... Kris shouldn't have to deal with this shit."

"And?"

"And I don't want it to scare him off," Adam admitted, very quietly. "We work together _really_ well, the music's amazing, I haven't written anything like this in years, and..."

"And I'm coming over," Cassidy completed. "Let Roger know, do I need to call Lane?"

"No!" It came out too fast, too sharp, and Adam cut himself off, silently cursing. "Cass, please. I need you to go to Navarre's. Kris is in the studio, he's got his phone switched off, he probably doesn't even know any of this is going on. He said he doesn't have people to do business stuff for him but he's got to have PR, Roger's calling them so there must be someone - "

"_Breathe_," Cassidy said again, more firmly. "Adam, stop, breathe. Have you had breakfast?"

"Just coffee, it doesn't matter." It wasn't _relevant_.

There was silence for a moment. Adam closed his eyes, and focused on his breathing, waiting for Cassidy to agree. He _had_ to agree.

Finally, there were sounds coming from his phone again. "Cass?"

"One day," Cassidy said, "I'm gonna get you to actually start doing yoga, or pick up meditation again. Tommy's going to Navarre's, I'm bringing you breakfast. Let Ben know to expect me. Oh, and call your mom."

He hung up before Adam could argue. Which he'd definitely intended to do because, yeah, it would be really good to actually _see_ someone right now, but it was more important that Kris got the news from someone who'd be able to tell him how to deal with it and who'd report back to Adam. Someone who could deal with... Fuck, the vultures had to be circling Navarre's already.

Adam's phone beeped. He tried to answer it in the desperate hope that Kris had actually picked up his message, then realized that the beeping sound wasn't a call, wasn't _ever_ a call. It was a text message notification. Two of them.

`got it, bb boy. trust us. tjr xox`   
`I meant that about your mom. be there in 20.`

Adam rather despairingly wondered when his life had turned into one where his friends had the direct number of his PR people, went to let Ben know to let Cassidy in and call back-up if he needed it to deal with the press, then trusted Cassidy and called his mom.

~~~

By the time Cassidy turned up, Adam wasn't much calmer. He'd tried to calm down, and talking to his mom had helped some, but the continuing lack of contact from Kris _and_ Roger was making him antsy. When the doorbell eventually sounded, he interrupted his pacing of the length of the living room to answer it.

"Sometimes," Cassidy told him, "you're hopeless. Go sit down and let me put this onto plates."

"Or we could eat from the bag." Adam tried to peer in, only to have Cass pull the bag away and out of his reach.

"Sit _down_," Cassidy said firmly. "Your schedule's clear for today, you can take the time to eat properly. Unless you're writing?"

Adam shook his head. "I haven't even tried. Have you heard anything from Tommy?"

Cassidy looked at him for a long moment, then shifted the bag into one arm and pulled Adam close with the other. Adam resisted for maybe half a second and then gave in, shamelessly clinging and resting his head on Cassidy's shoulder. Tall friends were a good thing. Tall good friends were a better one.

"He won't even have reached the studio yet," Cassidy said, and kissed Adam's forehead. "You'll know as soon as there's something to know. Until then, sit down, eat breakfast and talk to me."

Adam compromised. Sort of. He sat down, but he sat on one of the stools in the kitchen so he could watch Cassidy turning bits of fruit into fruit salad. "I just feel like shit for dragging Kris into this. It's not something he's had to _deal_ with before, and - "

"And he's a big boy," Cassidy said firmly. "He's been in the business as long as you have, and who dragged who into it?" He stabbed a knife into a kiwi fruit, slicing it neatly.

"I..." Adam stopped. "He came to the club. He knew I was gonna be there, Brad said he'd hold Kris responsible for making sure I was there."

"Think about that." Cassidy dropped a handful of kiwi slices onto a plate and started hulling strawberries. "And tell me why you're freaking out. Why you're _really_ freaking out."

The kiwi fruit was irresistible. Adam snagged a slice and ate it in two bites. "Because something weird's going on here. And because... Oh, fuck."

"Because?" Cassidy prompted quietly. He set the knife down, and sucked strawberry juice from his thumb.

"Because I'm crazy about him," Adam admitted. Fuck, he'd fallen for the straight guy. Even if admitting it to himself felt like a relief, it really wasn't one, because it meant he'd be absolutely irrational until he could get past it and see if he could turn Kris into an actual friend. If Kris even wanted to be.

"I wondered when you'd work that one out." The strawberries slid onto the plate next to the kiwi slices, and Cassidy turned his attention to a melon.

Adam wondered if it was seriously possible to love someone so much and want to punch them at the same time. "You mean, you knew?"

Cassidy laughed. "You're not exactly subtle, baby. So, you're crazy about him. What are you going to do about it?"

TMZ, Adam thought. Perez. Every right-wing crazy in the country and beyond. Westboro Baptist Church and every other bigoted asshole who'd ever picketed one of his shows. All the shit he had to deal with just because he refused to hide who he was and all the shit that would come down on Kris' head if they were ever involved more than just working together. "Get over it, I guess."

Leaving the knife in the melon, Cassidy reached across the counter and smacked him upside the head. "Wrong answer."

"The fuck?" Adam stared and automatically rubbed the back of his head. It didn't exactly hurt but seriously, that? From Cassidy? Plus, he'd just messed up his hair. "How is that the wrong answer? How is there even _a_ wrong answer? It's my life, my crush, my decision how to handle it."

"Don't you think it's a little late for you to make that decision alone?" There was a beep, and Cassidy paused, holding up one finger. "Hold that thought."

Adam bit his tongue, seethed in silence, and stole a strawberry half from the plate while Cassidy slid his phone out of his pocket and slid his thumb across the screen. "Tommy's in. Don't text him, trust him."

That stopped Adam from reaching for his phone, but still, _seriously_. "What did he say?"

Cassidy shrugged. "That he's inside the gates at Navarre's. He'll tell us more when there's more to know. Adam, it's not just your name on the blogs this time."

"But it's my fault that his is there!" Adam protested, gave in, and pulled the plate close enough to start working his way through the colorful array of prepared fruit. "He shouldn't have to deal with this shit."

"He came to the club," Cassidy said plainly, and put a slice of melon onto the plate in front of Adam. "He went to find you. Tell me again why you're not talking to this man about you being crazy about him?"

Adam sighed, picked up the melon and bit into it, catching some juice with a finger as it spilled down his chin. "The end of last week, Friday, when we finished in the studio, I asked him to stay for dinner. He couldn't get away fast enough. You seriously think that's gonna be different like three days later?"

"I seriously do," Cassidy said. "Now, answer your phone and talk to the man."

"My - " Adam's phone started ringing. He gave Cassidy a narrow-eyed look, wiped off his fingers, pulled his phone out of his pocket and answered it. Standing up, he took a few paces away from Cassidy for some kind of illusion of privacy. "Kris?"

"Adam." Kris sounded ridiculously relaxed for someone who had to have half the paparazzi population of West Hollywood camping outside his studio. "You know I've already got a bass player, right?"

"He does lead and rhythm as well," Adam said inanely, gripping his phone tighter. "Are you okay? Shit, I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry, I wasn't thinking last night, I should've gotten you out more discreetly or put you in a cab or something."

"I've got lead guitarist, too," Kris said. "And I cover rhythm. Are you freaking out on me?"

Well, yeah. And now he was thinking about Kris and rhythm and how much he'd wanted to get Kris on that dance floor last night. "Some," he admitted. "Is this like, you've had hysterics and come out the other side?"

Kris laughed, the warmth of it soft through the phone. "I wasn't gonna come out at all yet, but..."

Wait, _what?_

Adam stopped stock still, knuckles white around his phone, dizzy, world beginning to slide out of focus until the steady heat of Cassidy's hand on his back focused him again. He looked up at Cass, mouthed a silent 'thank you' and leaned against him. "Say that again?"

The laughter sounded a bit more awkward the second time. "Look, is there... Can I see you somewhere to talk about this face to face? Only I've kinda got an audience here and we're on a schedule."

Right. Right, because Kris wouldn't have thought to get out of the studio where the rest of his band was, because there wasn't anything to hide, but he obviously couldn't go outside where the press was. "I don't know, my PR's kinda freaking out right now about me being anywhere within fifty miles of you."

"Yeah, I guess..." Kris sounded less certain. "I'm sorry, man, really, I didn't mean to cause shit for you."

"You didn't mean to cause shit for _me?_" Adam echoed incredulously. Cassidy started rubbing his back. "Kris, what the _fuck_ is going on here?"

"Stuff I don't wanna get into over the phone," Kris said. "There's gotta be some way we can meet up today, right?"

Maybe. Maybe not. Adam wanted to, wanted to see Kris and figure this all out but... "I'll call Roger," he said, since clearly that was the only way he was going to get anywhere closer to finding out what was going on. "Can you keep your phone on for like half an hour, or should I tell him to call Tommy?"

There was a pause, the sound of muffled conversation, and Kris sounding not at all happy, before Kris spoke again in words that Adam could actually hear. "You'd better tell him to call Tommy. I'm sorry, I've gotta go. I'll see you later."

See him later, with a little kiss emoticon. Adam swallowed hard around all the questions he had and nodded jerkily. "Later, yeah."

The line was already dead.

Adam put his phone down, turned, and wrapped himself around Cassidy, hiding his face in Cassidy's shoulder with a frustrated groan. "If I go back to bed and wake up again from the start, is today gonna start making any sense?"

"Probably not," Cassidy admitted and stroked Adam's hair. "Call Roger. I'll see if I can get anything more out of Tommy."

~~~

Roger wasn't exactly pleased to hear that Adam insisted on meeting with Kris that same day, but he didn't rule it out completely. In the end, Adam drew on all his confusion, all his frustration, and all his drama training, and told Roger just to make it happen and call him back with the details.

Then he turned his attention to Cassidy, shamelessly eavesdropping on what he could hear of the conversation, which, to be fair, wasn't much.

Cassidy put his phone down on the coffee table, closed his eyes, and folded straight down to the floor. Adam would have been alarmed if he hadn't seen it enough times before to recognize both a coping strategy and a meditation pose.

He went to fetch water for both of them, left Cassidy's next to his phone, and dropped onto the couch to wait. Either Roger would call, or Cassidy would regain enough control to speak, and it wasn't like Adam was going to be capable of anything at _all_ productive until whatever was going on with Kris was sorted out. If Traci wanted him to do interviews today, she'd have to deal with the fact that he just wouldn't.

Or something like that.

His phone was still resolutely silent, no new messages, no new calls, so he just flicked through, deleting some old messages, filling time, not thinking about Kris and what Kris had said, and what Kris hadn't said. Hadn't meant to come out. As in, he was straight and didn't need to or he was gay and that was why his marriage had broken up and he intended to stay in the closet? No, fuck, no, couldn't be that, Kris had said 'yet'. Kris wasn't going to come out _yet_. Which implied that Kris was going to at some point, planned to, even, and fuck, he hadn't meant to delete that message until he'd stored the contact details.

Adam determinedly put his phone down, folded his hands together in his lap, and wondered when it would be safe to call people. Probably not until he knew what was really going on, which was going to be after he'd talked to Kris, which was going to be when he saw Kris, and maybe the last traces of the hangover would even be gone by then, and everything came back to Kris.

The faint sound of Cassidy cracking the seal on his bottle of water brought Adam's attention back to the here and now. "Cass?"

Cassidy shook his head, took a long drink of water, then screwed the lid back on and rested the bottle against the back of his neck. "Tommy's not talking. I think he genuinely doesn't know much more."

"But Kris does." Kris was very probably the only person who _did_ know what was going on. "Can we not tell Brad about any of this? Ever?"

"Can you convince a hundred journalists not to publish anything about this?" Cassidy returned. "He already knows what's on the internet. You _know_ he does."

Adam knew, and usually he'd value Brad's encyclopedic and detailed knowledge of all the latest gossip, apart from the bit where this time Adam apparently _was_ the latest gossip. "Yeah, I know," he said, and finally opened his own bottle of water. "He's not gonna be happy."

"He's gonna be less happy that he found out from the internet," Cassidy said bluntly.

"He knew Kris was there last night!" Though possibly not the thing about him giving Kris a ride home, or how handsy Kris had been, or how neatly Kris fit under his arm and against his side, or how good Kris had smelled despite several hours in a hot club. Kind of clean and fresh. Shit, he was _screwed_.

"Adam..."

Adam sighed, picked up his phone and sent a brief text to Brad. `its all bullshit mostly. sorry about fake redhead guy.`

~~~

Roger, Adam decided, was a miracle worker. He probably hadn't personally arranged for Amy Winehouse to be arrested _again_ in such a photogenic fashion, but Adam was pretty sure that Roger did have something to do with how quickly the news got out. It meant that Adam got a text from Tommy telling him that the photographers were temporarily off the trail, and one from Kris saying that he was on his way.

Cassidy just kissed Adam, wished him luck, and left as soon as he knew that Tommy had left Navarre's.

Contrary to what Brad might say and Tommy might think, Adam wasn't actually a teenage girl. Not even mentally. He was a fucking rock star, and fucking rock stars did not pace restlessly around their palatial mansions while waiting for southern songwriters to show up at their door. Therefore, no matter what any observer might have believed they were seeing, Adam Lambert did not spend the next twenty minutes pacing from his kitchen to his studio, from his studio to his living room, from his living room to his kitchen, and on in increasingly tense circuits.

When he finally got the call from Ben to say that Kris had arrived, Adam was in the kitchen completely by chance. No, on purpose, he'd gone there purposely to get a drink, he'd... pretty nearly drowned in self-deceit and it was all so fucking exhausting. He stared at the mug sitting on the counter, wondered if he'd intended to actually do something with it, and left it there, grabbing a fresh bottle of water from the fridge instead.

He still hadn't opened the bottle when he answered the door. The afternoon sunlight streamed from behind Kris, throwing his face into shadow, but not hiding the hunch of his shoulders or the fact that Kris had both hands pushed into his pockets. Adam forced down the urge to hug him (because there was every chance that a stray photographer had managed to get close enough) and stood back, pulling the door wide. "You'd better come in."

Kris came in.

It was definitely the first time Adam had seen Kris arrive without his guitar case, but not the first time he'd had the urge to hug the breath from him. "You want a drink or something?

Kris shook his head in silence.

Adam shrugged and closed the door. "Okay, so, come on through. No, not that way." He reached out and caught Kris's arm, stopping him from heading for the studio. "Living room."

"Right, yeah." Kris' voice sounded rough, lower than usual, but he didn't resist Adam's guidance. In fact, Adam would swear that Kris actually moved in closer to him when they touched.

Gently, he pushed Kris down onto the couch and sat down on a chair not quite opposite. Close enough to touch, but with enough distance that he wasn't actually touching by default. "You wanna try telling me what's going on here?"

Kris pushed a hand through his hair, and finally lifted his head to look at Adam. Shadows lay dark under his eyes, and apparently he hadn't taken time to shave that morning, though if he'd started as early as Adam suspected, combined with the late night at the club, the lack of shaving was totally understandable.

He folded his hands together between his knees to stop the instinct to reach out so he could trace his fingers over the stubble and find out how it felt.

"I didn't want you thinking I was using you," Kris said quietly.

It was so far from what Adam was expecting that it took a moment to work out what Kris was actually saying. "Using me? For what?"

Kris shrugged and folded his arms over his chest. "Publicity. With the album coming out soon and stuff."

"_I'm_ the one who forced you into working with me right now," Adam pointed out. "And being seen with me isn't exactly _good_ publicity for you."

"Tell that to my agent," Kris said wryly. "There's... So I guess you figured out I'm not straight, right?"

Hoped. Maybe fantasized, in those few weak minutes in the early hours of the morning. Figured out was putting it kind of strongly, though, and hearing Kris actually _say_ was another matter entirely, stealing Adam's breath and replacing it with something that was almost definitely hope. "Not until this morning, when you mentioned coming out."

"Oh. Right." Kris paused and took a deep breath, his chest visibly rising. "So, I'm not straight. My PR's got this thing all planned out, there's an interview I did with the Advocate that's gonna be in the next edition."

The Advocate. Of course, the Advocate. No Rolling Stone for Kris Allen. "Around the publicity before your album comes out."

Kris dropped his gaze, looking down at his own knees. "Yeah. I kinda hate the timing of it but I don't wanna wait any longer, you know? It feels like lying."

"So why didn't you do it earlier?" Fuck, he was _not_ turning into one of those people, no chance. He was all about people coming out in their own time, when they were ready. When they were comfortable.

"It wasn't fair to Katy." Kris unfolded his arms and dropped his hands to his knees. Adam finally worked out that Kris was fidgeting, which meant he had to be less confident than he sounded. "I mean, _you_ know what they're like. If I made a big thing of being bi when I was married they'd be all over it and assuming I was cheating on her and looking for proof all the time. If I came out right after the divorce they'd assume I was gay and that's why she left me."

Adam couldn't argue with any of that. "So this is a safe length of time since the divorce?"

"Something like that, yeah." Kris paused, knuckles pale where he was holding onto his own knees. "And _I_ wanted it out before the album's ready and someone or something else outed me and it turned into a bigger story than the music."

"Something like being seen coming out of a gay club with a 'notorious' gay singer," Adam said flatly. "Is that what the whole vow thing was about? I wondered, I mean, you went from saying no to weed because it was against the spirit of it, to showing up in a club which definitely hit the partying clause pretty hard."

Things were beginning to slot into place, and Adam wasn't entirely sure he liked the picture they made.

Kris flushed, let go of his knees, and clasped his hands together instead. "I really did want to focus on the music. My music."

"And?" Adam took a drink and tried not to make assumptions about what Kris was going to say.

"And we were in a bar," Kris said, standing up. "And I got the call from Navarre to say we could use the studio, but we could only have a month, and we'd had a few beers, and it was a joke at first."

A joke. Just a joke, and he'd been trying so hard to work around it. He'd thought Kris was taking it so seriously. There'd been all that shit with the doorman. "A joke?"

"Yeah." Kris paced away, just a few steps, and turned to look back at Adam. His face was hidden again, the light from the window behind him, not late enough in the day to have the lights on indoors but enough that Kris' eyes were masked by the fall of shadows. "At first. Then I thought about it and with everything, well, it seemed like a good idea. Giving up parties and stuff meant I wasn't doing interviews and that got PR off of my back for a few weeks, and giving up girls kept Cale's ex away and for the first week it all worked really well. And not dating meant that there wasn't gonna be any distraction from the music for me or for the media. So it became real, it was a matter of honor."

Adam was gradually adjusting his assessment of Kris. So maybe he was still a really sweet guy with some old-fashioned ideas and maybe he was a guy who blushed really easily, but he clearly had a better understanding of how to deal with all the crap that surrounded the music industry than Adam had given him credit for. "But you still showed up at Fubar last night."

"I gave Brad my word," Kris said seriously.

"And that's enough to break your vow?" It didn't make _sense_.

"I didn't exactly..." Kris sagged. "Not really. It goes against the spirit of it, I know, but I wanted to..."

Adam finally stood up and went over to him. There was obviously something that Kris wasn't saying, and he was beginning to suspect what it might be. "Wanted what, honey?"

Kris looked up at him. "I wanted to see you not here."

Standing up was maybe a mistake, but being closer to Kris really wasn't. "Me and my bodyguards." Adam began to grin. "Why didn't you just _ask?_"

"You were being so careful." Kris headbutted Adam's shoulder.

Adam blinked, laughed breathlessly and let himself touch. Just lightly, one hand gentle on Kris' shoulder. "I don't know who you've been talking to, but careful is not exactly a word people use for me."

"About the _vow_," Kris corrected him with a scowl, but moved in closer anyway, following the press of Adam's hand.

"You were taking it seriously enough to not let me even _talk_ to you a week ago." And now, fuck, _now_ Adam wasn't even really sure he was awake, that this was really happening. He increased the pressure slightly on Kris' back, and was rewarded with Kris resting against him, body heat flaring where they touched, giddy with the crystalline possibility of the moment.

"Because I didn't wanna...." Kris paused and swallowed. Adam watched the bob of his larynx moving with fascination, and let himself think about kissing it. "I kinda have a thing for you," Kris whispered. "I knew you were gonna be distracting."

"Oh, honey." It was going to be about three years before Adam could stop smiling, and maybe even longer before his feet touched the ground again. "You have _no_ idea."

Part of the reason Adam could do any of this was because he didn't believe it was entirely real. The rest of it was because he'd been wanting to since the first moment he'd touched Kris' hand through the gates. Lifting his free hand, he brushed his fingers gently against Kris' cheek, finding the stubble rougher than he'd imagined and Kris' hair far softer than he'd thought anyone's hair could be.

Kris closed his eyes and leaned his head into Adam's hand. "So give me an idea."

Adam _had_ to be dreaming. "Open your eyes, honey."

Those amazing eyes, warm and clear, even darker than usual, opened, looking straight up at him. "Unless I'm gonna grow six inches in the next minute, the next move is definitely yours."

The accent was stronger as well, nearly a drawl. Adam licked his lips and moved his hand, cradling Kris' jaw. "I'm making it," he breathed, dipped his head, and finally, _finally_ kissed Kris.

If he'd thought he was high before, he was stratospheric now. Kris' lips against his managed to be soft and firm at the same time, no hesitation, and he could feel the way Kris pushed up towards him, as if he wanted more. And Adam gave him more, and _more_, touch and taste and hold, soft sounds of happiness and desire traded and shared until the world shrank and faded, the only focus left to him the tight reality of Kris kissing him and Kris holding him, Kris in his arms and Kris filling his senses.

It could have been a few minutes or a few hours, even a few days. All Adam knew was that when he finally lifted his head, his world had changed again, courtesy of Kris Allen. Picked up, spun around with the two of them at the center, and everything settled back into place exactly where it had been but somehow _different_. New.

Full of certainty.

"I'm not gonna be your distraction," Adam said, very softly.

Kris, thank fuck, looked as dazed as he felt. "What?"

"Distraction," Adam repeated. "You said. You didn't wanna work with me because I'd be a distraction."

"Kind of a big one," Kris said, bit his lip, and didn't let go of Adam.

It might have been one of the hardest things Adam had ever done in his life, but he let go of Kris. "I'm not gonna be your distraction," he said again. "I'm not gonna stop you from making your music. I'm not gonna be something the media can write about instead of your singing."

Kris let go and took a single step back. "But... you kissed me."

Adam shook his head. "No, honey, we kissed each other. That was definitely mutual kissing."

"And it was _good_," Kris insisted.

"It was amazing," Adam said softly. "And I wanna do it again, and again, and a whole lot more distracting things, but you took a vow."

"You didn't." Kris lifted his hand and stopped just short of touching Adam's arm. "Adam, what...?"

Adam shook his head. "I'm not saying no. I'm saying not now. I'm saying don't make everything you're doing more complicated by involving me in it right now."

"What if I want to involve you in it?" Kris said stubbornly. He dropped his hand onto Adam's arm, skin against skin below the sleeve of Adam's t-shirt and desire flaring to new life with the direct contact. "What if I want to involve you in _me?_"

"Then you'll have days like today every day of the week," Adam said bluntly. "You have photographers on your doorstep, you have people watching where you go, who you see, what you do and it all turns up on the internet along with speculation about what it means. And it's not _nice_ speculation, baby, these aren't generous people."

"And I have nights like last night." Kris squeezed Adam's arm tightly. "And I get kisses like that one just now and more distractions, and days like we've had in the studio, and I get to hear you sing, and I get to make music _with_ you, and I get to not give a _damn_ who's watching me because the people who matter will know the truth. _We'll_ know the truth."

Nights like last night, and Kris laughing and hugging him in his studio, and Kris talking guitar chords with Tommy, and Kris in his _bed_. "My PR's gonna kill me," Adam said simply, failed to make himself actually care, and kissed Kris again.

~~~

>   
> _HE WRITES, HE SINGS...  
> Kris Allen's long-awaited album drops on Monday and we're here to tell you, it's everything you've been waiting for. Twelve previously unrecorded tracks have the recently-out songwriter finally singing his own songs and there's no weak link in this chain. Keep your ears open for the backing vocals, particularly in the track rumored to have been originally written for Adam Lambert, What I See. Allen's tempted some old friends and some new ones into the studio with him, and even if he's not credited, we can definitely hear the distinctive tones of a certain rock star harmonizing with Allen's deeper vocals. Pre-order now from Amazon or check back here on Monday for an iTunes link._   
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kradam big bang - and with thanks to everyone involved because you're all amazing.


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